


Crisis at the Literature Club

by HoneybarryCutiedoobles



Category: DCU, Doki Doki Literature Club! (Visual Novel)
Genre: Crossover, Drama, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:40:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 210,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25845961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HoneybarryCutiedoobles/pseuds/HoneybarryCutiedoobles
Summary: Following a special arrangement made by their fathers, Jon Kent and Damian Wayne are now attending Gotham High, together. They soon find themselves joining a Club all about Literature, meeting four unique girls in the process.What could go wrong?
Relationships: Damian Wayne/Natsuki, Jonathan Kent/Sayori
Comments: 12
Kudos: 13





	1. Prologue: Origin Story

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: This story contains depictions of mature and serious subjects from a writer who has none of the maturity or seriousness required to properly write about said subjects. If you are at all offended by this, it is suggested that you ignore this content and leave the rest of us to have some fun in life.
> 
> Thank you.

Monika should NOT be out on the streets this late.

It was a sad fact that every parent did their best to nail into their children's heads, until the knowledge became second nature, the same way everyone knew you shouldn't take candy from strangers, trust a man in a big white van, or approach clowns.

Gotham City was dangerous.

Even discounting the various costumed super-criminals, which were as popular talking points amongst tourists as the gargoyles littering the rooftops of the city, there were plenty of "normal" criminals as well, who were a little less eye-catching, but just as dangerous. Mobsters, gangs, or just your typical lowlife down on his luck with a gun in his hand that could ruin your entire life with a simple pull of the trigger.

Sure, it was risky for the criminals to be outside at night, too, and it was a fact that there were much less crime in the city than a few years ago allegedly because of the actions of a man more infamous than the city itself. But still, Gotham was a big city, and the Batman was only that- one man.

Monika did know all of this, of course. She perfectly understood the potential dangers this city offered, and knew that she really should have went home much sooner. But at the same time, she'd lived here all her life, with no incidents at all. Sure, she'd seen the news like everyone else, about toxic rain in the Industrial District unleashed by Doctor Death and killer birds terrorizing Park Row because of some nefarious scheme by the Penguin, and who could forget the bi-weekly Joker victim that constantly made the headlines?

And Monika did feel sympathy for all those less fortunate people caught up in that stuff, but it just seemed like it was stuff that always happened to other people, and not her. Which still made it awful, of course, but it didn't make her rush home as fast as she could in fear of something terrible happening the next minute or so, because that stuff simply didn't happen. The chances were so laughably low, they weren't even worth considering.

And she had much more important stuff on her mind than the invisible boogeymen supposedly haunting the city. School stuff, to be exact. She had done it, accomplished one of her biggest dreams since middle school- she'd started a club! A real club, with real people meeting up for real and discussing real things! And it was hers. She was the President of the club! She could hardly believe it herself. And best of all, the subject of the club was one for which she had great passion: Literature.

It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, though. Things rarely were. There were a few kinks to work out, such as scheduling, finding out what exactly they would be doing there during club hours, and most importantly, finding more members.

It wasn't solely on her to do all these things. There was a wonderful girl who'd helped her make this club a reality, a real ray of sunshine whose overwhelming positivity towards everything and everyone went a long way in convincing the Principal to approve the club. It had been a hard sell, Literature wasn't the most appealing-sounding thing to make a club out of, and the Principal was worried it'd end up a club for two people only.

But after much negotiation, they had finally brokered an agreement with her: If they managed to get at least three more people to join in the next two weeks, the Principal would approve of the club, and make it official.

They'd taken it, thanking her profusely, and immediately set out to hunt down potential members by stopping random students in the hall and asking if they'd like to join.

It turned out the Principal had been right in her prediction that a club all about literature would be a hard sell. Students not already committed to more interesting clubs like the Art Club or Music Club would be intrigued at first when they'd approach and start pitching, but would typically start looking for escape paths the moment Monika brought up what it was actually about. They'd stayed for about an hour after school, just looking for candidates, but without getting any takers.

Having been a bit let down at this turn of events, her partner had cheered her up by putting a hand on her shoulder, telling her not to lose hope in the club. It was Friday after all, and most students would be leaving school as quickly as possible to celebrate the fact they'd survived another week of hard gained education, and would prepare to lose it all again in the upcoming weekend. She'd guaranteed there'd be more takers next Monday where they'd be a bit less swift to leave.

Monika had smiled at that, she could see the logic behind her new friend's words. They'd hugged, and the girl had assured her that they'd make this club a thing, no matter what it'd take, she promised. Monika had been touched at these words, giving her thanks, promising that she'd be made Vice President if they managed to make this happen. The girl's eyes had lit up at that, and they'd hugged again.

The girl had then said that while she had to head home now, she would be making a few calls over the weekend. She knew some people attending the school she thought she would be able to convince, particularly two girls she'd seen around a few times. One of them always had her head buried in a book, so she must at the very least have some interest in literature, and the second knew how to bake the most delicious cupcakes she'd ever tasted, which would be a big sell to get other people on board.

Monika had frowned slightly at that, asking if that wouldn't be considered bribing?

Her partner had laughed slightly nervously, pressing her fingers together awkwardly, and said that as long as it got results, who cares how they made it happen, right?

Monika hadn't been able to think of a good counterargument to that, and had merely accepted, thanking the girl again for her contributions.

Before departing, the girl had said that this club was her dream, right? And everyone deserves a shot at their dreams.

Monika smiled as she remembered those words. She was truly lucky to have found a friend this pure.

The club would be hard work, but Monika appreciated the challenge, and would face any potential problem head on, like a true leader.

After giving up on finding other members for the club, at least for today, Monika had looked at the clock, and figured she probably had time to get some piano lessons in. Normally, students weren't allowed to stay at Gotham High after hours, but Monika had earned quite a bit of respect amongst the staff for being one of the top students in class, always punctual, polite and, not to toot her own horn too much, incredibly smart. They'd trusted her with spare keys to the facility so she could stay after class to get in some extra studying whenever she needed, or in this case, practicing piano.

The piano practice was a recent thing she'd started. Despite her already busy schedule, between homework, chores at home and soon, hopefully, the Club, she'd realized that she really wanted to learn to make music, and the piano just seemed like the most elegant instrument. She wouldn't say she was very good at it, but she hoped she were at least steadily improving with all the hours she put into it. Like with all other things, she preferred to learn it by herself, feeling that was by far the best way for her to ever improve. She was her own best critic, after all.

She'd gotten in a solid hour before noticing the sun setting, and decided she should probably head home for the day, so she'd departed the school, locked it down, and walked home in the twilight of the city.

She lived quite a bit away from the school, so the trip would take some time, but she didn't mind. It was nice to just walk with nothing but your own thoughts to keep you entertained. She briefly wondered if an attitude like that was why she still didn't have a boyfriend.

"Excuse me, miss?" a shrill, slightly croaky voice came from the inside of a dark alleyway Monika was about to walk past, and she stopped, glancing in.

"Me?" She asked.

"Yes, my dear." came the voice again, and Monika squinted, trying to see the owner of the voice. "I'm in a spot of bother, and I could use some assistance, if you wouldn't mind helping an old woman."

With effort, Monika saw the silhouette of a small figure, seemingly wearing some heavy drapes, slightly bent over, holding a cane in one hand. What appeared to be a large hat obscured her face.

She took a tentative step into the alleyway, far enough for her to be able to see a little better, but not far enough that she couldn't bail and run at the first sign of trouble.

"What seems to be the bother, Miss...?" She asked, with an inquisitive inflection on the miss, in order to learn the elder woman's name. She always thought it built a great sense of trust between two people after learning their name.

"Jenkins, dear. Suzie Jenkins. If you would please come closer, I can show you what my problem is." The lady said, making a hand gesture, beckoning her to come forward.

Monika hestitated. The whole situation, with the dark alleyway and the strange woman, and having to come closer seemed like the exact situation you always got warned against, and she was tempted to just turn her back on the woman, but... the idea of leaving a helpless woman in need to fend for herself, especially in a city like Gotham, just seemed incredibly selfish and ill mannered of someone who was supposed to be an honour student at her school, and soon-to-be President of a new Club. Could she really allow herself to turn down this plea for help, from a senior citizen?

"Please, dear. My back is not what it used to be." The woman apparently called Jenkins, said.

No. She couldn't.

"Be right there, Miss!" Monika walked into the alleyway, convincing herself that there was nothing to be afraid of. She moved past two medium-sized dumpsters, and saw no hidden assailants hiding behind them. She took a deep breath, getting a peculiar scent of something floral she didn't recognize. She took in the appearance of Jenkins, now seeing a feminine jaw sticking out from beneath the large shadow of the hat. She looked very pale, and her lips, darkened to the point of being black with lipstick, turned upward into a grateful smile.

"Oh, thank you, dear. I was beginning to think my situation was hopeless."

Monika smiled at the woman. "Not to worry, Miss Jenkins. What can I do for you?"

"So polite! My my, you'll do nicely." Jenkins took a step forward, pointing at the ground. "I was walking through here, when I noticed my glasses were starting to get foggy, so I took them off to give them a polish. But my grip is not what it used to be, my dear, so I dropped them, and now I think they're under this dumpster."

She pointed a gloved finger at a trash compactor.

"Could you be a dear, and bend down to pick them up for me? I'm afraid I'm as blind as a _bat_ without my glasses."

Monika didn't miss the weird inflection the woman put on the word "bat," but chalked it off as purely coincidental. She'd experienced her own voice cracking at really awkward moments when she'd rather it didn't and could only hope that people would be kind enough not to point it out to her when she did, so she kept silent about it.

"Not a problem, Miss." She said, even as she cringed at what she was about to do. She felt a little bad doing that, as it really wasn't that big a request, and it would really help this woman, but as per her own words, she wouldn't be able to see her disrespectful expression anyway, so she didn't feel too bad.

She tried her best to bend down on her knees in a presentable manner, reaching behind and making sure her blue skirt, which was mandatory for students of Gotham High, covered everything. She really thought the skirts they issued were way too short, and she made a mental note to bring it up to the staff at the next student council meeting.

She suppressed a sigh, and reached under the dumpster with her hand, feeling around for the woman's lost glasses. She _really_ didn't like doing this, feeling that at any moment she might touch something slimy, hairy or, worst of all, alive.

_If I touch a rat, I'm going to scream._ She thought, closing her eyes, as she mentally prepared herself, taking a deep breath.

The floral smell was getting more intrusive, and she briefly wondered if someone had dumped a weird kind of chemical into the dumpster. Maybe it just hadn't been changed in a while, and someone's vegetarian dinner was really making itself known.

She felt something hard and thin at her knuckles, and closed her hands around something that was almost certainly the frame of a pair of glasses.

"I think I got them!" She declared triumphantly, as she pulled her prize out from underneath the dumpster, and rose to her feet again.

"Oh, how wonderful!" The old woman exclaimed. "Now, if I can trouble you for just a second more of your time, can you check if they're damaged? It was quite a fall they took, after all."

"No problem at all, ma'-" Monika stopped midsentence as she looked at the object in her hand, and took in what she was seeing. They were glasses, alright. But she doubted the lady would be able to see any better wearing these, as they didn't have lenses.

Instead, the cheap plastic frames sported exaggerated cartoonish eyebrows sticking up from the top of where the lenses should have been, and underneath the empty frames a large plastic nose went down, ending in a moustache made in the same way as the eyebrows.

They were those classic gag disguise glasses, often seen in very old cartoons and comics.

"Is- is this some kind of joke?" Monika asked, staring at the old lady whose smile had widened.

"Yep! Boy, I got ya good there!" The lady's voice had lost the croaky tone, instead taking on a higher pitch, sounding... younger. Almost child-like. "Now, _dearie,_ come closer. We still haven't reached the punchline yet!"

Monika went pale, dropping the gag glasses. The floral scent was overpoweringly strong now, and it seemed to cloud her mind, making the whole alleyway spin in front of her. She turned around to run away, but something caught her leg, and she tripped, landing face first on the rough pavement.

"That's kinda rude! The least you could do is laugh!" The woman Monika now suspected wasn't as old as she claimed, shrieked from behind her.

Monika turned her dazed head, attempting to sit up and examine what had tripped her, since it seemed like it wasn't letting go.

"To be perfectly honest, it wasn't really that funny, Harl." Another female voice, this one deeper, talking more slowly, heavier. Monika glanced up and noticed another silhouette coming forward, behind the not-old lady. Monika fumbled manically at her leg, trying to find what seemed to be growing tighter around her ankle.

"Eh, everyone's a critic." Jenkins said, dismissively.

Monika's hands made contact with something long, smooth and... _moving,_ slithering up her leg. The sensation made her stomach churn.

_A snake?_ She thought, starting to panic. But as she began struggling to stop the constricting tentacle, she soon realized that it really didn't have the texture of any animal she knew of.

"I'd suggest you stop struggling, because you might accidentally hurt my baby." The other woman, with the heavier voice said, a threatening undertone ringing clear. "I've told it to restrain you harmlessly for now, but I can just as easily make it grow thorns."

_It's a vine!_

Monika abandoned her hopeless attempts to claw off the plant, and tried crawling away instead, even as the vine constricted tighter around her leg, and, if she wasn't completely losing it, seemed like it was pulling her slowly backwards, towards the two women. She inhaled more of the all-consuming floral scent, feeling her arms and legs grow heavier, until she simply couldn't move at all anymore.

She tried screaming for help, but only a tiny croak escaped her lips before her head too started becoming heavy, and fell to the ground as well.

Monika's last thought before losing consciousness, was that she really shouldn't have been out on the streets this late.

* * *

"...should be starting to wake up now."

"Well, let's speed that process along!"

A wave of cold liquid splashed over Monika's face, awakening her as she sputtered and gasped for breath. She opened her eyes, squinting at the sharp light, still coughing, trying to get the water out of her throat.

She tried moving her hands to wipe away the water dripping off her face, but realized soon enough that both her arms and legs were restrained, tied to the cheap wooden chair she was sitting uncomfortably on.

The rest of the room soon came into focus, every thing she saw in it making her panic more.

It was a big, open room, with sharp industrial lightbulbs scattered all around, bathing the room in unnatural light. There were no windows anywhere, making it impossible to tell what time it was, and Monika noticed the same floral scent in the air, although to a far lesser extent than in the alleyway.

From what she could tell, she was in what appeared to be an abandoned warehouse, littered with plants of all shapes and sizes. Vines reached down from the ceiling, all the way down to the floor, like dead snakes. Bushes and trees were growing all around, sporting many different varieties of fruits and flowers in all possible colours. There were also a bunch of plantlife she'd never seen or heard of before, the most noticable one way off in the corner, several feet high, a bolbous purple head swaying dangerously on a comparatively thin stilk, and disturbingly, if she wasn't much mistaken, it seemed to have sharp teeth sticking out from a slit in the middle, giving it the appearance of a perpetual, sharklike smirk.

Monika shivered, both from the cold water running down her face, soiling her clothes, and from looking at the monstrosity in the corner.

A sharp noise made her look to the middle of the room, seeing one of her assailants snapping a finger in her face to get her attention.

With a sinking feeling in her stomach, she recognized the person. She was wearing a skintight outfit which hugged her body, showing off her generous curves. The outfit alternated between red and black colours, red and black diamond shapes plastered at random parts. Her face was chalk white, a black domino mask highlighting some very blue eyes behind it, and an oversized jester cap covered the top of her head, with bells on each end jingling slightly every time she moved.

Her lips, painted with black lipstick, stretched into a smile when she saw Monika's attention on her.

"Morning, sleepyhead! We were worried we pumped too much knockout gas inta ya noggin!"

Monika flinched as Harley Quinn folded her hand into a fist, knocking at the student's head a few times as one would a door.

"Wh-where am I? What happened?" Monika's voice was hoarse, and her heart was pounding out of her chest. She'd heard of this criminal before, it was hard to avoid hearing about the self-proclaimed girlfriend of one of the most notorious murderers in Gotham.

She could remember when she was five years old, and was sitting in the living room, watching cartoons on the TV. Suddenly, the feed was interrupted, replaced by a pale man with an unsettling smile on his face, rambling on about some kind of fish. She'd thought she'd accidentally changed the channel, but when she'd picked up the remote and pressed a few buttons, she'd realized it was on every channel. She hadn't really understood alot of what the man was saying, her being very young, but it had made an impression on her when she'd seen Harley, cartwheeling into frame and presented the fish the pale man she now knew as The Joker, was talking about. She'd thought Harley was funny back then, stumbling over her lines and looking into the wrong cameras. She'd even laughed when The Joker had stuffed a fork with a piece of fish into her mouth, despite her saying moments before that she didn't like fish.

That was when her mom had come in, and, seeing what her child was watching, promptly turned off the television, much to the despair of 5 year old Monika. Her mom had lectured her afterward, saying that those two on the TV were very bad people, and if they showed up on the TV again, she should turn the thing off at once.

Monika hadn't really understood it back then. They'd been funny clowns talking about fish on the TV, how could they be bad? Only after years of growing up, reading horrible news article after horrible news article had she learned that her mom had been completely right to have turned off the TV. The death toll those two had been responsible for racked up in the hundreds, maybe even thousands, and in every video clip Monika had seen of them, they'd just been smiling and laughing with no hint of any remorse for what they'd done. There were many colourful criminals and killers in Gotham, but none of them were as attention grabbing and in your face as Joker and Harley.

They weren't funny. They were heartless monsters, and one of them was staring down Monika right now, the same psychotic grin on her face.

"Ya have the honour of being the first ever kidnapping victim to visit the Harley an' Ivy Top Secret Hideout numbah 68!" Harley announced, clapping her hands enthusiastically, then leaned really close to whisper into Monika's ear. "To be honest, I'm kinda hoping for the Bat to find this place quickly. Just to move on to the next number."

She turned her head, looking at Monika expectantly, who simply stared back with wide, fearful eyes. Harley frowned.

"Aw, come on. Yer a young high-schooler. That should have made you at least crack a smile."

Monika kept staring at the costumed woman, who sighed.

"Anyway, to answer yer next question, ya fell for the ol' Woman-Lost-Her-Glasses-In-The-Dark-Alleyway gag." She bent her knees, and her back, lowering her face to be at eyelevel with the chairbound Monika. She put one hand on her crumpled back, and seemed to grasp an invisible cane in her other. She then spoke, a shaky croaking creeping into her voice.

"You shouldn't trust old women, my dear. We're all witches trying to lure you into our gingerbread houses!"

She straightened up again, a mocking laugh erupting from her, echoing in the massive warehouse turned greenhouse.

"Man, we got ya good!" She said, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes.

"Entertaining our houseguest, Harley?" A heavy, feminine voice came from a few feet away, and Monika turned her head to identify the source.

She blushed when she saw the owner, and averted her eyes to the floor. And she'd thought Harley's outfit was risqué.

The most eyegrabbing part of the woman's appearance were definitely the unnatural greenish skintone she was sporting, and the fiery, crimson hair on her head which looked light as air as it seemed to flow softly from her head, like a jellyfish's tentacles in the ocean. The second most noticable thing about her had to be the clothes she were wearing, or, more accurately, the lack thereof.

She was one of the most voluptous women Monika had ever seen (not that she'd seen alot.) Everything about her, from the way she walked, hips swaying hypnotically from side to side, to the way she looked at you, with heavily lidded eyes, just oozed sexuality. From the brief look Monika caught of her before turning away in embarrassment, she could see that the only things keeping her from being completely exposed to the world, were a small number of strategically placed leaves and flowers, covering parts of her impressively sized breasts, and crotch area. Still, it left _very little_ to the imagination.

Not that she was imagining her naked.

She'd already pretty much guessed who Harley's partner in crime was, seeing the decor of the warehouse, but her appearance here confirmed it: Poison Ivy.

"I'm _trying,_ but it's a tough crowd out here!" Harley said, crossing her arms and extending a tongue at Monika, mock insulted.

"I see. Maybe I can get her to, ah, relax."

Monika flinched, feeling Ivy's fingers brush lightly against her shoulder, as she came up from behind her. She'd heard news about her too, about how just being in her near vicinity was enough to get infected by whatever toxins were on her. How a single glance from her was enough to lose your will to her. How a single touch from her on your skin was enough to make your whole body wilt in a matter of seconds.

They were all rumors of course, and she'd never bothered to read official reports on the full nature of her powers. Hell, maybe there was nothing supernatural about her, and she was just an experienced chemist with a flair for botany. Not that that would make her feel any better in this scenario of course.

She felt Ivy's presence in front of her, and kept staring resolutely on the floor to the side, scared to even breathe. She felt her getting closer, could see the hint of a green face out of the corner of her eyes, and felt as thin strands of scarlet hair brushed up against her cheek.

"Hey..." Ivy whispered softly, and Monika felt like she was gonna cry as she felt a finger stroking her chin, softly pulling her head towards facing forward.

"Don't be scared... I'm not going to hurt you..."

Ivy's face was centimeters from Monika's, a strong odor of roses emitting from her. Monika looked into her half-open eyes, which looked like a sea of emerald water, easy to lose yourself beneath the waves.

"You have pretty eyes..." Ivy whispered quietly, staring into Monika's own green eyes, which she'd always been proud of. "I like the colour... do you like mine...?"

Ivy's hand travelled upward to stroke Monika's long, auburn hair, and played a bit with the white bow that served to separate the front of her hair from the ponytail behind her.

It was too much for Monika.

Tears dripped from her eyes and she sobbed in despair. All this touching from the supervillainess was pretty much a guarantee that toxins were already traveling through her bloodstream, destroying her from the inside. And even if that was only rumors, she doubted it mattered. They were both killers, and she was sure they both had a variety of creative ideas on how to kill her.

"P-please." Monika said, voice breaking as she sobbed harder. "I-if you're gonna d-do something, c-can you p-please just d-do it and get it o-over with?"

Through watery eyes, she saw Ivy's eyes open slightly, giving her a surprised look quite unfitting her previous seductress attitude. Then, the corners of her mouth moved downwards to a slight frown.

"Disappointing." She said, and moved away from Monika

"What happened, Red?" Harley asked, putting a hand on the redhead's shoulder. "Why isn't she going all gah-gah for ya?"

"It seems our guest isn't into members of the same sex." Poison Ivy said, an annoyed undertone in her voice.

"What? That's a requirement? It worked just fine on Catwoman, that one time." Harley said, a disbelieving tone in her voice.

"Are you surprised? Selina did always like playing both sides." Ivy said. "My pheromones can only get to people if they already feel some level of attraction towards me already. It seems that _she,"_ Ivy shot a glare behind her at Monika. "...does not."

"Hey!" Harley yelled, taking some heavy footsteps towards Monika, and jammed a finger between her eyes. "Are ya saying my friend Ivy is ugly?!"

"I-I'm s-sorry!" Monika said, unable to stop crying. "I-I d-don't know w-what's going on!"

Ivy put a hand on Harley's shoulder, smiling gently at her.

"Settle down, tiger." She said, reaching over to pull her hand away from Monika's forehead. "It is possible that she's just heterosexual."

"Really? In this day and age?" Harley asked, as if the very concept was foreign to her.

The jester-themed villainess crouched in front of Monika looking up at her face quizzically.

"Yer telling me ya _never_ even considered going for the other team? What are ya, a freakin' nun?"

"I'm sorry?" Monika said, not having expected to have her sexuality of all things judged when she'd been kidnapped.

"Eh, whatever." Harley said dismissively, and got to her feet again. She turned to look at Ivy who was looking herself in a hand-mirror, adjusting her look to fix some non-existant flaws on her face.

"Whadda we do now? We can't bedazzle her to get the information we need!" Harley said.

"Well, if the pleasant way to get her to talk won't work, there's always the rough way." Ivy turned her head slightly, letting Monika see a smirk of schadenfreude on her face.

Her blood ran cold.

_Oh no._

"I-I'll tell you anything you want to hear!" She burst out, desperately. "You don't need to do anything! I'll talk!"

"Aw, man." Harley said, rolling her eyes and sighing, disappointed. "They always do that. Why can we never find someone like in the action flicks who goes all 'I'll die before I talk to you!' in these situations? At this rate, I'll never get to use the torture kit I got for Christmas!" She pouted, crossing her arms. Ivy patted her on the shoulder.

"Look at it as a compliment. They clearly think we're pretty scary if they always choose to talk before we even do anything to them. It's good for our rep."

"Ugh, I guess." Harley threw her hands up in an exasperated manner. "I just really wanna try pulling someone's nails out. It's like, top five on my wishlist."

"Bit weird thing to want to do, but alright."

"Hey, no judging!"

Scared of where this conversation could potentially go, Monika spoke up despite her fear.

"Uh, so, uh, what would you like to know? I'm not really that learned, I mean, I'm still in high school, but I'll do my best to answer."

They looked over at her as if they'd forgotten she was even there.

Harley spoke up first.

"Well, fer starters ya can tell us if yer family is loaded."

"Loaded?" Monika tilted her head, confused.

"Oh fer chrissakes." Harley said, pinching her nose. "Loaded! Rolling in dough! Raking in cash! Are yer parents filthy rich or nah?"

Monika blinked.

"Oh! Uh, I live in a mansion, so I guess so?"

"A freakin' mansion?!" Harley looked excitedly over at Poison Ivy who shared a smile with her, giving two thumbs up. "Jackpot!"

She did a backflip, landing on her hands and pushed herself off the floor to land right next to Monika. Harley bent her knees, and threw her arms around the bound girl.

"I had my doubts about ya, but turns out ya was worth the trouble!"

Monika smiled nervously, not knowing how to respond.

Poison Ivy walked over as well, smiling at Monika.

"Do you think your parents will be willing to pay a generous ransom to get you back, child?" Ivy asked.

Monika frowned, taking the question in.

"Uh... yes. Yes, I believe so."

"Hooo, wee." Harley said, unclasping her hands from Monika again. "There was a lot to unpack in that sentence. If we weren't on a deadline, I'd love ta pick yer brain as Doctor Harleen!"

Monika wasn't sure she liked what the woman was insinuating with that.

"Anyhoo, lemme get the phone numbah. I'll make the ransom call right now. Hey Red, hand me the voice disguiser!"

"Why do you need to disguise your voice? We never do these things anonymously. Them knowing who they're dealing with is the reason they take us seriously."

"Red! Voice disguiser! Now!"

Ivy rolled her eyes, as she began walking away.

"One filthy old rag, coming up!"

"Yer the best, Red. Now," Harley pulled out an old cellphone, and punched a few buttons. She then looked excitedly over at Monika. "Tell me their number. Oh, and if ya can begin crying again to tug at their heartstrings, that'd be awesome!"

"Uh." Monika gave her best apologetic smile. "They're sort of... not available at the moment." Harley's smirk vanished from her face.

"Whaddaya mean, 'not available?'" Harley asked, raising an eyebrow.

"They're on one of their business trips. I'm... home alone at the moment." Monika said.

"But... surely they must have left ya some way ta get in touch with them, right?"

"I'm afraid not. They prefer not to get interrupted while they settle deals." Monika said.

"Alright, alright." Harley said, bouncing her phone in her hand in order to think clearly. "Do ya have any idea when they're gonna return?"

"Uh, they never give me a precise timeframe, but they left pretty early this month, so they should return in about two months or so."

"Two months?!" Harley yelled, startling Monika. "We don't have two months, we need the money now!" She let out a frustrated yell, and Ivy hurried back into the room triumphantly holding up a washcloth covered in stained black marks.

"I got the rag! Are we ready to- wait what's going on here?" The plant lady raised an eyebrow at Harley stomping around angrily.

"What's going on!" Harley yelled, shaking her fists at her partner in crime. "Is that we ain't getting a cent from this caper!"

"What?" Ivy's eyes widened.

"So typical!" Harley continued ranting. "The first student we pick for kidnapping just so happens to live inna mansion, be easy to drug and transport, AND has pretty eyeballs, but she just has to have toxic abandonment issues with her parents, so they aren't even able to pay the GOD DAMN ransom!"

"Hey, I don't have toxic abandonmmphf!"

Monika was interrupted when Harley snatched the disgusting rag from Poison Ivy's hand, and without ceremony forced it into Monika's open mouth. She tried hard not to gag, and ignore the various taste sensations her tongue was picking up. She _really_ didn't want to throw up right now.

"So what do we do now?" Ivy asked, exasperated.

"I dunno! It's the weekend, there aren't any students walking around outside any longer!" Harley yelled, raising her arms and letting them fall to her sides with a sigh.

Poison Ivy turned her eyes to look at the bound and gagged Monika, still trying her best to ignore the rag in her mouth. It was a look of complete and utter apathy.

"Well, I guess we can't use her any longer."

Monika stopped her struggling, turning her attention to the women who were both looking at her now.

Harley sighed.

"Yeah, I guess not." She withdrew a knife from somewhere on her outfit. "Sorry, kiddo. Ya seemed nice."

Monika's eyes widened, and she started struggling against her binds, but they were too tight. She tried spitting the rag out of her mouth, so she could plead for her life, but it was too tightly wedged in there.

"It's nothin' personal. We just can't wait for two whole months and take care of ya at tha same time. Ya'd totally starve, and yer not getting Bud and Lou's rations!"

Monika couldn't believe what she was hearing. She watched Harley approach, knife in hand, and tried screaming, but it only came out as a strangled muffle around the cloth in her mouth. She tried struggling as hard as she could against the robes binding her, pushing so hard that the chair tipped over, and she landed sideways on the floor.

"Oof." Harley said, flinching. "Good try, but ya ain't breaking those bonds." She crouched next to Monika's head on the ground, stroking her chin gingerly. Monika's eyes welled up with tears.

"Look, I'm sorry it had ta come to this." Harley said. "But we just can't risk ya running to the police and tellin' on us. Surely you can understand that, right? Yer a smart gal."

_I won't tell. Dear God, I promise I won't tell!_ Monika thought as hard as she could, trying to somehow mentally insert the words into Harley's mind since she couldn't speak.

"Shh, shh. It's okay." Harley wiped a few tears from her cheeks, petting her face, as if comforting a sick animal she had to put down. "I promise this won't hurt. I've done this many times before, ya know, and guess what?"

Harley lowered her face to Monika's eye level, flashing her a toothy grin.

"I haven't gotten any complaints so far!" She chuckled a bit at her own joke, as Monika broke down even further, closing her eyes as she awaited the inevitable.

"Aw come on, that one was good!"

"Can't you just get it over with, Harl?" Poison Ivy's voice.

Monika opened her eyes again, in pure desperation. Ivy was by no means a good person, but she felt as if she could relate to her better than Harley who was just... insane. Maybe, just maybe, she could break through to her?

She stared ahead of her, past Harley, focusing on the plant lady. She... had her back turned. She wouldn't even look at her as she was about to die?!

_I'm... I'm going to die._

The realization hit her like a ton of bricks. In a few seconds, her life would be over. Gone. Poof.

She'd heard of near death experiences, how people said that their past life had flashed before their eyes. To Monika, it didn't happen like that. Instead of witnessing her past events, the things she now saw before her eyes were all the things she'd hoped would happen in the future, but now never would. Graduating. Her getting a job as a writer. Her playing the piano at a concert. Fame. Fortune. Getting married. Settling down with her husband. Having kids.

None of this would happen. She'd never write her own book. She'd never get to write a song. She hadn't made a lasting impact on anyone's lives. Next Monday, her partner at school would wonder where she was, and if they weren't supposed to get the Literature Club started.

_The Literature Club._

Her first big achievement, the stepping stone for the rest of her life, would never see the light of day. Or worse, the girl would somehow find all the members necessary to start it without her, making _her_ the Club President, making _her_ the Club owner, all the credit and accomplishments from it becoming _hers._

She would die, without anything to her name. No books, no songs, no club. No boyfriend.

_It's not fair._

It was an all-consuming thought that made everything else around her pale in comparison, even the knife getting lowered to her throat.

_It's not fair. It's not fair! IT'S NOT FAIR!_

An indescribable feeling washed over her, erupting from her chest, and spreading, lightning-fast through her body, her arms, her legs, her fingers, her toes. Her head. It lingered there, and next came the pain.

Horrible, horrible burning pain surged all around her head, as if her brain matter was replaced with molten lava. She felt like it was exploding, she couldn't take it, she screamed and shook herself, no thoughts in her head beyond the insurmountable _pain._

She found herself actually wishing for Harley to cut her throat, just so she could escape the intolerable experience.

And just then, as she was sure she was about to pass out, it stopped, as fast as it had come.

She breathed heavily, coming to her senses again, the rag still in her mouth.

"Jeez louise! What was that, a seizure? That's certainly a new way to prolong yer life by a few seconds. Red, ya seeing this?"

Monika opened her eyes again, remembering her situation. She felt the blade, resting on her throat.

"Just make it happen already, Harl."

Monika looked over at Poison Ivy, seeing her back was still turned to her, the exact same position as before the... _thing_ happened. But now, she saw something new about her.

Words. Words floated around her body, slightly translucent, but clear enough. They drifted slightly, moving around like lazy butterflies, and underneath them were strange, green bars.

Well, some of them were green. Some were lighter shades of green, some were yellow, orange, even red. There was some sort of pattern there, the red bars being very short, at most a few centimeters, while the greener bars stretching onwards for at least a meter.

"Right-a-roonie! Say goodbye, Miss..." Harley paused. "Aw man, I totally spaced on yer name. Something with an M, right? Ah geez, this is gonna bother me fer the rest of the day. I wanna say... Monique?"

Monika looked desperately at the floating words, circling lazily around Ivy. Clearly, they meant something, but what? And could they help her in any way?

"Molly? Mona? Moira? Ah man, what the heck was it?"

She tried reading the words. Love. Hate. Fear. Joy. Anger. What did they mean?

"Harley!" Poison Ivy's sharp voice.

"Okay fine! Goodnight, Moana!"

She felt the knife being raised from her throat, and figured she had seconds before the madwoman would plunge it down. Whatever she was going to do, she had to do it now.

She found a word she liked. Compassion. She always did like longer words, and she could sure use some compassion right about now.

The bar underneath it was yellow, half the length of a bright green one. She hoped she had interpreted the lengths and what they meant right, and stared as hard as she could while she thought.

_Go up. Go up. Go up._

And to her great surprise, it worked. The bar extended itself, going from yellow, to yellowish green. She felt her head hurt as she willed the bar to go up, but she didn't stop looking. A few more inches. A few more.

"Stop!" Ivy's sharp voice again. Monika blinked, thinking she was yelling at her, but then looked up to see Harley's knife, held inches away from her face.

"Huh?" Harley asked, looking at her partner, confused.

Ivy turned around, and walked briskly towards the jester, snatching the knife from her hand. Harley grinned.

"Ah, I getcha. Ya wanna off her yerself, huh? That's the murderous plant goddess I know and love!"

"We're not killing her." Ivy simply said, throwing the knife away, into some bushes.

"Wha- why not? Hey- what gives?" Harley yelled in a shrill voice as Ivy took hold of Monika's fallen chair, raising it upright, and brushed some debris from Monika's clothes.

"We don't kill schoolchildren." Ivy said, brushing some strands of hair away from Monika's face.

"You okay, Monika?" Ivy asked Monika with a soft voice. Not the soft voice she'd used to try and seduce her with earlier, but more like a concerned parent.

Monika couldn't believe it had actually worked. She wasn't even sure what exactly she'd done.

"Since when?" Harley half asked, half screamed, throwing her arms up. "We kill people all the time, how is this any different?!"

"Please, keep your voice down." Ivy said, grasping her head with a pained expression on her face. "I can feel the beginnings of a migraine coming on."

"Oh, nah. Nah, nah, nah. No. Yer not getting off that easily." Harley said angrily, shaking her head.

Monika took this chance to focus on the Compassion word floating around Ivy again, the bar still green, but not in the same shade as other words, like Love. She wanted to raise it higher, but discovered that when she focused harder on the Compassion word itself, many more words started becoming more visible, each one with its own individual bar. These weren't names of emotions, however. They were just... names. She saw names that were short and red, like Batgirl, Batman, Bruce Wayne, Harvey Bullock, Harvey Dent, James Gordon, Jason Woodrue, and others still were green and long, like Acacia, Alec Holland, Birch, Cactus, Harleen Quinzel, Selina Kyle, Venus Fly Trap...

She blinked, and the names disappeared. She focused on Compassion again, and there they were. Were these... Ivy's levels of compassion for each individual?

"Harley, I'm serious. I think I need to lie down." Poison Ivy said, sounding tired.

"Fine! Then go lie down, get better. But I'm gonna go finish the job, and kill the bitch! Ya wanna suddenly grow a conscience, fine, good for ya, but ya can't expect me to suddenly follow along." Harley said, pointing an angry finger at Ivy.

Monika looked through the extensive list of names in the air in front of Ivy.

_I need to find Monika._

And just as she thought that, the names scrolled past her eyes, until she was looking at her own name. She widened her eyes, surprised, then focused on the bar. It wasn't exactly the most amount she'd seen, the bar barely reaching a yellow tint. It was still higher than some, like Woodrue's.

"I... I don't know..." Ivy said, sounding confused, unconfident.

_Well, here goes nothing._

She focused on the bar underneath her name, trying to make it go up. She felt the same discomfort in her head, like the worst migraine she'd ever felt, but it was working. The bar was steadily climbing upward, changing hue until it was green.

"Touch her and your mutts are dead." Ivy said, and it was like her voice was plugged into a megaphone, echoing all throughout the warehouse, scaring Monika. She looked past the words and bars, and focused on Ivy. Her hair was whirling around her head in a frenzy, and she saw her green eyes losing the irises, and if she wasn't much mistaken, glowing bright. Around her, it seemed like a wind was raging, except it only seemed to affect the plants, the trees and bushes swaying dangerously, flowers shaking, fruits exploding into paste. The monstrous plant by the corner opened its slit-like mouth wide, and yellow sludge billowed past its teeth.

"Wh- what are ya saying, Red?" Harley asked, a nervous stammering entering her voice, as she looked at Ivy, fear in her eyes.

"You are not to hurt so much as a hair on Monika's head." Ivy said, her voice still echoing all around them. "I'm tired, my head hurts like you wouldn't believe, so I'm gonna go into my pod to recharge. You can guard Monika, but if she's hurt in any way when I wake up again, your rotten hyenas will have peed on their last plants."

"Don't hurt the kiddo, I gotcha!" Harley said, closing her eyes as she smiled nervously at the angry plant lady. "Ya can count on me!"

Poison Ivy's eyes stopped glowing, and her hair settled on her shoulders again. She looked absolutely exhausted.

"Just keep your voice down, please." She mumbled, as she walked off.

Harley made a zipping motion on her mouth, to show that she would be quiet, and flashed a thumbs up. As soon as Ivy had walked to the edge of the room, and closed the door behind her, Harley sighed heavily, and leaned up a nearby tree.

"What the heck?" She mumbled to herself, confused.

Despite the hammering pain in her head, Monika couldn't help smirking slightly. She didn't know what exactly was happening to her, but she knew how to use it.

* * *

"So, what's yer opinion on Bane?" Harley asked.

If Monika could sigh around the rag still in her mouth, she would. At least she was getting used to the taste.

"Pers'nally, I think he's a bit overrated. Like, B-Man already has a strong guy in his bad guy gallery, y'know?" Harley took another handful of peanuts, popped them into her mouth, and munched on them for quite a while before continuing. "Ya know Killer Croc, right? Well he's essentially Bane, but cooler. I mean, the guy's a crocodile man. Freaking awesome." She took another peanut break.

"Like, I'm pretty sure Croc was there first. But then this Bane guy comes from outta nowhere, and even kicks Croc's ass, and suddenly we're supposed to treat him as the newest, biggest, baddest deal? I'm sorry, but in my book, crocodiles are cooler than luchadors. I know yer supposed to treat him as like, being super smart and stuff, so he's like as much a mental threat to the Bat as a physical one? Which would justify him as a foe totally unique from Killer Croc. But, I mean, how smart can the guy be when everytime they fight, it ends up with Bats snipping his Venom tubes, he screams a bit, and then goes out like a chump? At least with Killer Croc, he has to get creative in order to beat him."

She seemed to think hard about the stream of words she'd just said, before shrugging.

"I dunno, what do ya think?"

Monika, unable to speak, simply stayed silent as she'd done the twenty other times Harley had asked her for her opinion on various costumed people in the city. She wondered if the woman had forgotten about the rag she herself had put in her mouth, or if she just loved the sound of her own voice, dragging on.

_Somebody has to, I suppose._

She would admit to being more irritable than usual at the moment. Ivy had rested for a while now, and Harley had apparently meant it when she said she'd guard her. But of course, she couldn't do that quietly, she had to engage in this one-sided, endless conversation.

Monika was tired beyond belief. She had no way to tell the time, but she had to have been sitting here for at least a few hours. Her body ached from being forced to sit in this position for so long, the robes binding her wrists and ankles were really starting to dig into her skin and her head still throbbed from heightening Ivy's compassion.

At one moment, Harley had left the room, giving her hope for just a few minutes that she could finally try to get some sleep, uncomfortable as though that seemed, sitting in this position, but that hope had been dashed when Harley had returned to the room, now with an oversized bag of salted peanuts, adding the crinkling of the snackbag and periodic munching to the endless stream of noise.

_Still, at least I'm alive._

It was a fair point, even though she didn't exactly feel like looking at the few positive sides that remained. She turned her gaze to the things that had saved her from certain death.

Words and bars were bouncing around Harley's body, sitting next to her, resting against a small bush as she rambled on about another costumed criminal. She had been surprised to see them on Harley as well, initially thinking Ivy was unique. She wondered if she could see them on everyone in the world, if she ever got out of this mess.

She had dubbed them "Sliders" in her head, picking the name from the MMO's she'd played in her youth, specifically the character-creators. Where you could "Slide" certain bars to customize your character, to determine their height, thickness, skin hue, and many other factors.

From what she could tell, it was an apt comparison, since it worked largely the same, except it affected their emotions instead of appearance, hurt her head when she used it, and, y'know, she could do it in real life.

_If this is real life._

She shook her head to get rid of that thought. She couldn't afford to go down that rabbit hole again, especially not now.

She had refrained from using her newfound power on Harley's Sliders, since that would mean more pain in her head, and she thought that the best way for her to escape, would be through Ivy. She hadn't forgotten that showcase of power when she'd yelled at Harley, demonstrating that every plant in this warehouse was under her control, a personal army at her fingertips. Even if the police found her, it was unlikely they could get through all this flora. No, Poison Ivy was the biggest threat by far here, and if she was going to have any hope of escaping, it was her she should spend her effort on neutralizing. Even if she didn't know exactly how she was going to do that yet.

It wasn't all about not wanting to over-exert herself, or picking the right targets, though. She just didn't feel comfortable manipulating their emotions like this, snooping through their personal feelings.

She'd started going through the Love folder on Harley, simply looking for something to read to pass the time instead of listening to Harley go on about Kite-Man and how she thought he was overusing his catchphrase to stay relevant. Simply reading the words didn't cause any strain on her head, it was only when she tried to move the Sliders that the aching took hold. It made sense to her, in a way.

It didn't surprise her to find the Sliders on Joker and Pamela Isley to be long and bright green, but then she found a name that she wasn't expecting.

Sharon Quinzel. Slider, half full. Yellow.

She'd immediately closed her eyes, and collapsed the Love folder at that point, not reopening it and just tried her best to ignore the Sliders from that point on. Some things were just too personal, and she really didn't want to know about the family drama of the lady who wanted to kill her. Some things just felt wrong knowing about.

Man, her legs were really aching. If only she could move them. Maybe she could try making some noise, get Harley curious, and make her remove the rag, so she could tell her she needed to go to the bathroom?

She rolled her eyes, thinking that with her luck, the clown would probably think she was trying to chirp in on whatever rant she was going on about now, like how The Penguin should make up his mind about whether he wanted to be a serious, threatening gangster running the Gotham Underworld, or if he wanted to be a crazy lunatic like the rest of them with trick umbrellas going WAUGH, because it just made it weird when he tried to do both.

God, she just wanted to sleep. How long had she been awake now? Was it even still Friday? Did Harley never get tired?

A loud beeping erupted from her school uniform's pocket, startling her as she looked down. She'd known her phone was in there, but had given up hope on trying to get it to call the authorities, since her restraints were just too tight and secure. Still, she had held out hope that maybe once Ivy returned, she could make her so compassionate that she'd untie her, and then maybe she could stealthily send her location to the cops, warning them that two supervillains were holding her hostage.

Her heart sank as Harley stopped talking, turning her head towards the noise coming from Monika.

"Wuzzat?" She said, mouth still full of peanuts.

Monika could only watch as Harley got to her feet, and walked over to her, ran her hands up and down her body until she found the noisemaker, pulled it out of the pocket, muted it and inspected the screen.

"It says ya need to take yer medicine." Harley said, and Monika closed her eyes in exasperation. That meant the time was 06:00. She'd stayed up the whole night.

"Wowzers." Harley said, then stretched her arms, yawning widely. "Didn't expect ya to have a condition. What is it? ADHD? Wow, if so, sitting there like that must really be torture, huh?"

She giggled at that.

"Come on, tell me. I'm a Doctor, maybe I can get ya what ya need. Ya wouldn't have an alert on yer phone unless it was serious."

Monika thought that even if she was physically capable of answering, she wouldn't trust her with giving her so much as a vitamin.

"Is it blood pressure? Nah yer a little young for that, aren'tcha? Diabetes? I'd be happy to poke a needle or two inta ya."

That sounded mildly alarming.

"Not gonna answer, huh? Ooh, is it something yer ashamed of? Is it..." Harley held a hand in front of her mouth, fake gasping in shock. "...a mental illness?"

Monika really didn't feel comfortable with where her train of thought was going, and lowered her head so she didn't give anything away through facial expressions. Unfortunately, this seemed to have the opposite effect.

"Oooh, it is, isn't it. Come on, it's nothing to be embarrassed about. I've got like ten going on at the same time in here. So, yer a wacko like the rest of us, huh? What's the diagnosis? Sociopath? Psychopath?" Monika felt her get close to her face, to whisper into her ear.

"Nymphomaniac?"

Monika snapped her head upward, staring into Harley's face, eyebrows raised in disbelief over how she could even suggest that. Harley merely shrugged.

"What? Could be. Maybe it could even help ya a bit. Yer a student, right? Ya wanna climb up the ranks, get the best opportunities in life going forward, correct?"

She did, but she wasn't sure she liked whatever advice Harley was about to give her.

"In that case, ya should consider dressing less conservatively. I can see ya got some curves, but yer hidin' way too much of it. Lose the bra. Those legs won't do everything on their own."

Monika blushed, scandalized at what she was suggesting she should do, and looked down at the floor again.

"What?" Harley's amused voice. "It did wonders for my Doctor's degree. Eh, suit yerself."

There was a merciful silence for a bit, before Harley broke it yet again.

"Man, it really was an oversight that we didn't check fer phones before tying ya up. It looks a bit old though, so ya probably don't have the app where ya can share yer location with yer pals."

Monika chanced looking up again, to see what Harley was getting at now.

"Eh, better safe than sorry."

Monika's eyes widened, seeing the jester grab a baseball bat. She yelled and protested, the rag muffling everything, as Harley threw the phone high into the air, following it with her eyes as it surged upwards, then grabbed the shaft of the bat with both hands.

"Fore!" She yelled, swinging the bat upward where it made contact with the now descending phone, causing the device to explode in a cascade of electronic bits and glass, spreading all throughout the room.

Monika tried yelling no, but it came out as "MMPHF!"

"Ahh." Harley sighed, closing her eyes and smiling serenely. "I love breaking rich people's stuff. So satisfying."

She opened her eyes again, looking over at Monika's, filled with tears.

"Aww, cheer up, Moany. Yer can easily afford a new one. If ya ever get outta here, that is." Harley laughed.

And just in that moment, Monika felt something she'd never felt towards another living being before in her life.

Hate.

It made her forget about the discomfort that had been building for hours in her body, her aching head, everything else in the world. It simply burned all other feelings from her, to make room for a wild desire to see Harley die.

It wasn't just that she'd destroyed her phone, which she had valued greatly since she'd been 13 years old, taking great care not to break it despite her mom's prediction that it wouldn't last a month. She'd used it as a subtle way to rebel, showing her parents that things didn't have to be expensive to work.

It wasn't just that she'd robbed her of years of memories, in the form of her picture album, which she'd filled with hundreds of images through the years of her personal drawings, pets, Christmases, Birthdays, everything that felt like a momentous occasion, now forever gone, doomed to fall into the pit of forgotten memories.

It wasn't just that she'd destroyed her phone, laughing while she did it. It was because of everything she'd done to her since she'd called out for her in that alleyway.

She'd tricked her. Kidnapped her. Tied her up. Mocked her. Stuffed a disgusting rag in her mouth. Tried to KILL her. Kept her awake all night. Destroyed one of her most valued possessions. And what was she doing now?

Laughing. She was laughing at her.

And what had Monika been doing, what had she done to this woman that warranted her being treated this way?

Nothing. She'd done absolutely nothing to Harley, whatsoever.

And still she was laughing.

Monika hated her with every fiber of her being. Not just Harley herself, but everything about her. Her stupid skintight outfit, showing off her curves like a prostitute. Her stupid jester hat, constantly jingling every time she moved her head. Her stupid domino mask, she didn't even have a secret identity, what was the point. Her stupid, annoying, insufferably grating highpitched voice, like that of a cartoon character. She'd been forced to listen to that voice for hours on end, and she was convinced it wasn't even her real voice, just another front she put up, like her smile.

That damn, perpetual smile.

The way she put it up like a goddamn wall, as if it absolved her from her various wrongdoings. As if she could hide her real feelings behind it, take on any insults and criticism and keep on smiling to show that it didn't bother her, that _nothing_ bothered her, and mocked anyone who would try to bother her, just by showing that smile.

But she couldn't hide her feelings from Monika. Not anymore.

And if Monika couldn't move, speak, or do anything else to make Harley feel even a fraction as bad as she'd felt the whole night, then at the very least she could remove that stupid, fucking smile from her face.

She looked at Harley, bent over, clutching her stomach, still laughing maniacally. The Sliders moved peacefully around her, their slow floating being a strange juxtaposition from their wild and energetic owner.

Monika focused in on the Joy Slider. It stopped floating immediately, sitting still to allow her to do what she wanted to it. It was green, because of course it was. Everything was just one big fat joke to this girl, wasn't it? They were all just entertainment to her, objects of ridicule that she could point her fingers at, laughing at the misery she created for them.

_Let's see you laugh at this._

Monika could hardly even feel the pain erupting in her head as she lowered the Slider, the seething hate she felt deafening it. She watched as the Slider shortenend, changing hue to a paler green, then growing yellow.

The Slider was about at the half way point between full and empty, before Harley's laughter ebbed out at last. She was breathing heavily, a smile still on her face, but it didn't quite reach her eyes, which looked confused more than anything. As if she didn't know why she was smiling anymore.

The pain was making itself more known now, but Monika pushed through it, continuing to lower the Slider.

"Ow!" Harley yelled, grasping her head. "What the heck?"

So that confirmed Monika's ongoing theory that her Slider-adjusting affected the victims as much as it did her.

_Good._

Harley's smile was gone now, a slight frown on her face as she looked around the room, confused. Like she didn't remember why she was even in this room.

Her gaze landed on Monika, who was still lowering her Joy Slider, it having gone all the way down to dark orange now.

"The heck are ya looking at?" Harley asked, an annoyed undertone in her voice.

Monika kept quiet. Really, what else could she do?

"Quit gawking at me!" Harley yelled, anger in her voice, as she walked up to the chairbound student. And was it just anger Monika could hear, or was there a slight hint of fear in the mix?

Nevertheless, she kept staring directly into Harley's eyes. She'd left the Slider just at the point before reaching red, the pain in her head simply being much too great to go on with it.

"Yer being pretty freaking rude, y'know!" Harley said, jabbing a finger hard against Monika's forehead.

It hurt like hell, but Monika didn't blink, keeping her stare up. It was downright therapeutic to see Harley this unnerved.

"Stop it!"

An impact to Monika's right cheek made her head turn sharply to the side, leaving a sharp sting in her cheek to accompany the thunderous headache she was having. She didn't realize what had happened at first, but when she turned her head back to investigate the source, she saw Harley's face, contorted in rage, holding up a flat hand.

She'd slapped her.

Monika started to laugh. It didn't sound quite right, coming out more like muffled clucking since the rag blocked alot of the sounds, but it was still clear what she was doing.

She wasn't sure why she was doing it, her head was on fire, her cheek was stinging, her whole body aching from being stuck in this position for so long. Maybe she was delirious from lack of sleep. Maybe something else. She didn't know.

All she knew, was that knowing she'd wiped the grin off of Harley's face and gotten her mad enough to resort to physical assault against her, all just from looking at her, was the most hilarious thing in the world right now.

She couldn't stop. It was actually painful to keep laughing, even discounting the headache. Everytime she stoppped to get her breath back she'd see Harley's confused and enraged face, which would get her started laughing all over again.

It was just so _funny!_

"Ya really are a freak, aren't ya?" Harley said, in a low voice, shaking with anger.

It only made Monika laugh harder. Would she die from lack of breath? How would that look on Harley? Would she brag to The Joker about being able to make people die of laughter without the use of toxins?

The thought made her laugh more.

"Screw this, and screw you. I'm going to bed." Harley said, turning around to head out of the door, walking briskly, as if she couldn't wait to get out of the room Monika was in. She slammed the door, hard, making the impact echo throughout the room.

After a few minutes, Monika finally got over her laughing fit.

She breathed heavily through her nose, and reveled in the quiet that had been left in Harley's absence. She relaxed her head, closing her eyes. She didn't have anywhere to support her head, so she just let it hang in the air. Add neck pain to the list of body parts that'd be sore when she woke up.

Her head ached, she was incredibly uncomfortable, and she didn't know what was going to happen to her when she awoke. Maybe Harley would be so angry that she'd disobey Ivy's orders and just kill her on sight. There wasn't a whole lot of positives to look at.

And yet, she couldn't help but smile as she drifted off to sleep.

_I won._

* * *

"Here you go. How is that? Are you comfortable?" Ivy asked, a concerned tone in her voice.

"It's perfect. Thank you." Monika said, laying her head back into the soft flowers, enjoying the lightly fluttering petals on her cheeks. "I'm not hurting the plants or anything, am I?"

Ivy smiled.

"Not at all. I've spoken to them, and they've consented to give you a place to lay down. It's the least we could do after leaving you in that chair all night. Here, drink this."

Ivy handed her a steaming mug of... something, and Monika leaned up slightly to accept it in her hands. She took a careful sniff of the greenish liquid in the mug. Like everything else in the room, it had a floral smell, but nothing downright unpleasant.

She lifted the mug to her mouth, taking a sip.

"Oh wow." She said, taking another sip, then drinking deeply. The concoction seemed to spread thoughout her body, lingering at her sore joints, making the pain less intolerable. She'd never had something capable of relieving her pain this fast.

"This is amazing! What is it?" Monika asked, smiling up at Ivy.

Ivy smiled back, saying it was a special brew derived from the juices of a very rare plant that she'd convinced to give them this morning. It would heal all discomforts short of broken skin, in a matter of hours, as long as the subject remained relaxed.

Monika drinked the rest of the brew.

"I think a lot of people could benefit from having this type of medicine." She said.

Ivy chuckled a bit, taking the empty mug from Monika's hands, and carried it away.

"I'm sure they could. And, if humanity would stop cutting down forests and poisoning the environment, maybe the plants would give it to them."

Monika smiled nervously as she watched Ivy carry off the used cup. She thought it a good idea not to tell Ivy of her love for writing, which typically involved paper.

Although she wondered if that would make her raise as much as an eyebrow at her? She'd gone from one half of her kidnapping crew who wouldn't care if she died or not, to making her a downright luxurious bed of leaves and flowers.

All thanks to the Sliders.

Monika had wokened up, as sore as could be expected from the ridicoulus position she'd slept in, to find Poison Ivy exiting the door to what she assumed was her own personal room.

She'd found it very painful to even raise her head after letting it dangle for a good few hours, and had been alarmed when she'd looked to Ivy's compassion filter and seen the Slider below her own name having gone down.

Not that far down to make her fear for her own life, but still enough for it to be noticable. Even without the Slider telling her, she could tell Ivy's feelings weren't as compassionate as yesterday, when the plant lady had noticed her upright head and instead of wishing her a good morning or asking if she'd slept well, she'd simply said "Oh, right. You're here."

Monika had given a confirming grunt, rag still in her mouth, and had started willing the compassion towards herself to go further up again.

Always nice to start your morning by figuratively splitting your own head open.

After grasping her own head in pain and complaining about how her sleep hadn't helped her head at all, Ivy had looked at Monika again as if she was a totally different person from two seconds ago.

Her eyes had widened, and she'd asked if she'd spent the whole night like that, and Monika had given another affirming grunt. Eyes wide with concern, Ivy had reached into Monika's mouth, pulling out the rag now soaked in Monika's saliva, throwing it away.

Monika had thanked her, and Ivy had apologized for forgetting to retrieve it before going to bed. At this point, the Slider had reached faint levels of green.

Looking at her bindings, Ivy had made a sort of nervous noise in her throat, then told her that if she promised she wouldn't try to escape, she'd untie her. Monika had immediately jumped at the chance, reassuring her that she just wanted to lie down, on any surface they had available, even the floor would do.

_Ivy did me one better than the floor though._ She thought, closing her eyes peacefully as she let her body relax in the leaf and flower bed.

A loud bang from the other end of the room caused her to open her eyes, and sit up.

A door had been slammed open to reveal a young woman with loose, blonde hair in disarray, wearing an oversized white t-shirt and a pair of red and black shorts.

It took Monika a few seconds to identify her as Harley Quinn. That make-up and outfit really transformed her into something else.

She didn't need her Sliders to tell that the woman wasn't in a good mood, with the way she was scowling and keeping her head down, walking across the warehouse floor. It didn't appear as if she'd noticed Monika in her bed.

She wondered if she should hide before Harley saw her, but decided against it. Ivy was her ally for the time being, and she was literally lying in a bed of her soldiers. She doubted she could be better protected than she was now.

As the blonde came closer, Monika could hear her muttering under her breath.

"Need some damn coffee... gotta check if Red put any of that plant crap innit again... freaking head's killin' me... that little loser's gunna pay fer whatever she did to me..."

That didn't sound good. Monika looked over at Harley's Joy Slider, and noticed that it had actually gone up a bit since this morning. With both Harley and Ivy exibiting the same symptoms, it could no longer be chalked off as a coincidence.

Her changes weren't permanent. Eventually, she suspected, the Sliders would probably reset to the same level they'd been at before her tampering.

_Good to know._

She wasn't really in a hurry to do anything to adjust it. She was still mad at her, and it didn't look like The Slider was climbing up at any alarming rate.

Harley passed by the empty chair Monika had spent the night in, oblivious to the lack of a person in it, staggering like a zombie towards a small table with a coffee maker on it. She began pouring coffee powder in the filter.

Then she suddenly did a complete 180 spin, spilling coffee powder all over herself, leaving her white shirt completely stained, as she stared with a wild expression at the chair she'd just walked past.

She began looking all around the room, scanning all available locations until finally spotting Monika in the flower bed.

_Here we go._

She looked lost for words, which Monika thought was probably an unusual state for Harley to be in, but she quickly shook her head and made her way towards her.

"I don't know how ya managed ta get outta that chair," She said, anger clear in her voice. "But ya should have taken the chance to escape, cuz now Imma cut ya open and shove yer intestines down yer-"

"So, Monika, I was thinking that I'd give you this just to help your immune system against the toxins in he-"

Poison Ivy had exited the door to her room, holding what looked to be a syringe in her hand. She froze when she saw Harley who had also stopped moving towards Monika when Ivy had appeared.

"Ivy?" Harley's voice, disbelieving.

"Oh. Good morning, Harl. Sleep well?"

Harley ignored the question, and gestured towards Monika.

"The prisoner. She's escaped. And she's laying in yer babies."

Poison Ivy nodded.

"I'm well aware."

"Then why haven't ya _murderized_ her?!" Harley screamed.

Both Monika and Ivy grimaced at the sudden volume increase.

"One, keep your voice down, please. Two, she's laying there because I let her."

"Ya never let me sleep in yer plants! I tried once, and ya screamed at me fer the whole day afterward."

"Harley, you have your own bed. I grew that bed, specially designed for her to lie there, so as to make sure both parties are comfortable. You went to sleep in my garden of very rare, very fragile, and very _poisonous_ cacti."

"Excuses!" Harley yelled, and crossed her arms. "Why are we concerned about how comfortable she is? She's a cow fer the slaughter. It doesn't matter how she feels."

"I thought I made it clear last night about how we weren't going to kill her." Ivy said, a dangerous tone in her voice.

Harley sighed, and threw her head back, exasperated.

"Red. Please. Work with me here. What the heck are we gonna do with her? We can't keep her fer two freakin' months. We can't let her go, she'll go straight ta the cops."

"I really wouldn't." Monika cut in. "I would really just like to go home and try to forget any of this ever happened."

"Shut up!" Harley snapped, pointing a finger at her. "I can't stand yer annoying know-it-all voice."

_Rich, coming from you._

Monika turned her gaze towards Ivy. She'd gotten an idea.

"Please, Ivy. Honey. Baby. Just let me kill her." Harley said, in a softer, pleading tone. "She was an investment mistake. These things happen, but we shouldn't let them fester on. Just lemme end this error, and let's ferget about it."

Ivy looked uncomfortable, and Monika could see why. Opening her Compassion folder, she could see that she was pretty much tied with Harley in the people Ivy cared about most. It must be hard to pick a side between the one you had actual, genuine feelings for, and the one who'd pushed herself into her life and forced positive feelings on her.

_I could make it a bit easier to choose._

But could she really do this? Until now, she hadn't really done much to affect these people's personal lives. She'd done what she could to save her own skin from Ivy, and yeah, she'd made Harley a little less annoying, but she wouldn't say it was totally unjustified. She knew they were villains, but... wouldn't this cross a few lines?

"I... I don't know, Harley. She seems trustworthy. And she said she wasn't going to tell anyone. Can't we just let her go?" Ivy asked.

"Oh come on Red. Look at her. Ya don't actually believe that kinda crap she's spewing? She's a teenager, she's a student, and she's rich. Ya couldn't get a more accomplished liar than this if ya tried."

Welp, time to cross some lines.

With zero hesitation, Monika "searched" for Harley's name in Ivy's Compassion folder, found it, and lowered it considerably. She wondered briefly if she was causing internal damages to her head by doing this so much, squinting a little from the now familiar pain.

"Out of my way, Harley." Poison Ivy said, coldly, and walked against her so their shoulders collided, and Harley had to stand aside.

Harley had a look of surprised hurt on her face, as she saw Ivy bend down next to Monika, and started fidgeting with the syringe.

"Now, Monika, there are a few low level toxins in the air here, that I create naturally from my pores. They aren't that poisonous, but you might be affected a bit if you stay here for too long. This serum will strenghten your immune system, making you extremely resistant to most toxins, poisons and venoms."

"Wait, what?" Harley asked. "Isn't that the same thingie ya gave to me when we met and I crashed at yer hideout?"

"I believe so." Poison Ivy said, not even trying to keep the same warm tone of voice as she did with Monika. "What about it?"

"Y-ya told me ya d-don't give those ta just everyone. T-that it's only fer s-special people in yer life." Harley's voice was slightly breaking, and Monika could see her eyes were looking more shiny and wet than usual.

"I thought that was the case, too. But apparently I gave it to you." Ivy said.

Harley looked like she'd been stabbed in the heart.

Poison Ivy rolled up Monika's sleeve. Normally, Monika would be extremely hesitant to let a supervillain with "poison" literally in her name inject anything inside her (she even hated getting her shots at the Doctor's) but the Compassion folder on Ivy told her that she was now the plant lady's most valued companion, a good few steps above Harley, and she knew that Ivy would never hurt her. Plus, she really enjoyed seeing Harley's reactions to this. Did that make her a bad person? Maybe. But you couldn't say she wasn't justified, after the things they'd done to her.

Not wanting to watch the needle break her skin, Monika put on her best game face and looked unflinchingly into Harley's eyes as Ivy injected her. A single tear rolled down Harley's face.

Then, her brows furrowed.

"She's the one doing this." She said, in a dark voice.

"What are you rambling about this time?" Ivy asked, tired.

"Her." Harley pointed a finger at Monika. "She's doing something to us. Messing with us. I don't know how, but she's the only reason for why things have been so weird."

Monika raised an eyebrow. How would this unfold?

"Weird? Weird how?" Ivy asked absently, as she taped a small piece of cotton over the small hole where she'd pricked Monika.

"Are ya kidding? I've seen ya strangle dogs fer barking too loud at grass. Suddenly ya don't wanna off this kid? Ya gonna make her a luxurious flower bed? Can't ya see how out-of-character yer being?!"

Ivy turned around to look at Harley, a look of unconcern in her eyes.

"So what, this child is secretly some machiavellian scheming mastermind? Tugging on her strings to make us do her bidding? Even for your standards, it's a lame joke, Harley."

"I ain't joking." Harley said, scowling. "I haven't been able to since this morning. Ever since I guarded that bitch, I haven't been able to see the funny side of anything. I can't joke, I can't smile, I can't even laugh."

"Well then." Poison Ivy said, shooting a sideways glance at Monika. "My compliments to the chef. It's not a lot of people who can make Harley shut up, but you managed to do it with your _spooky mind powers!"_

She said the last part in an exaggerated, goofy voice, and Monika smiled, knowing now that she wasn't in any danger.

"Can you make her Hyenas stop barking next?" Ivy said, smiling back.

"I'll certainly try!" Monika said, playing along.

"The only way ya get to meet Bud and Lou is when I feed them yer corpse!" Harley yelled, angrily.

"Harley, be quiet. You know I've got a headache."

"The headaches, that's it!" Harley said, snapping her fingers as if she just thought of something. "Yer head started hurting back when ya refused to let me kill her, didn't it?"

Ivy rolled her eyes.

"I don't remember, Harley. You're really reaching he-"

"No, no, just listen ta me! She's about ta be killed, so she uses her weird powers to get ya to feel all sorry fer her. Then, she uses them on me because she's sadistic and won't let me have fun. I got a headache too last night! It fits! And now she's trying to make us turn on each other, by making ya act like a bitch."

"Oh, I'm a bitch now, am I?" Ivy asked, unimpressed.

"Don't worry. Once I kill her, and things return ta normal, I'll accept yer full apology."

"You will not harm her."

"It'll just take a moment and then we'll be best buds again..."

"Stop!" Ivy yelled, and Harley flinched.

"You seem to have given this matter a lot of thought, jumping through hoops to make this high school student the bad guy here. But did you ever stop to consider that maybe, just maybe, it's you who's the problem?"

Harley widened her eyes.

"W-what?" She asked in a small voice.

"I've dealt with a lot of crap from you. Crap that I've overlooked because I felt sorry for you. Your childhood. Your parents. Everything with _Him._ But I just can't do it anymore. You let your Hyenas run amok in my botanical gardens. You muck up my carefully calculated plans by 'going with the flow' when we try and rob someplace. You make everyone around you a walking target for The Joker just by being around them, you let him hurt and cripple you and your friends, and yet you STILL always return to him as his partner at the end of the day. I could be ruling Gotham, could have turned the entire city into my own personal jungle, if it wasn't for you constantly weighing me down!"

"Please, Pammie!" Harley pleaded, tears in her eyes. "This isn't like ya! Ya wouldn't be saying that stuff if she didn't make ya! It's all her fau-"

"Shut up. I can't stand listening to that voice of yours." Poison Ivy interrupted, in an icy voice. "There you go again. Blaming everyone for your problems in life except yourself. You're never to blame, are you? It wasn't you being dumb that made you drop out of high school, it was the education system's! If it wasn't for all the pervs at medical school, you wouldn't have had to sleep with your professors to get your degree! You didn't turn to a life of crime, The Joker made you! It's not your fault you haven't been rehabilitated, it's because Batman and Arkham has given you PTSD! It's not you being a toxic, attention seeking lost cause who ruins everyone's lifes just by being in them that makes me say all of this, _nooo,_ it's the magical mental powers of this innocent school girl you kidnapped!

Harley was sobbing wildly, and walked forward to try to hug her friend, but Ivy took a step back, out of her reach.

"Don't touch me. This isn't going to be like those times where you mess up, and think you can fix everything by being cute. I'm done. Done with you messing everything up, done with letting you crash when The Joker kicks you out, done with you, and that creep constantly invading my life. I'm done being your babysitter, Harley." Ivy turned her back.

"O-okay, I-Ivy." Harley said, through tears and sobs. "I-I'm g-going t-to l-leave ya be, i-if t-that's w-what ya w-want."

"Good. Then leave."

"J-just one l-last thing to d-do." Harley said, wiping away her tears. Then, moving faster than Monika's eyes could follow, Harley had reached back into her shorts, and drawn a gun. She squinted, taking aim directly at Monika's face.

"Ivy!" Monika yelled, unable to move, staring down the barrel of the gun.

Ivy turned around, and a vine shot out from the ground, breaking through the concrete floor of the warehouse at an unfathomable speed. Before Harley could pull the trigger, the vine had wrapped itself around her arm holding the gun, and twisted itself, pulling Harley's arm in a whole other direction.

Harley yelled in surprise, and fired the gun.

A loud bang echoed throughout the room, and shocked silence followed. Then, an inhuman roar from the other end of the room.

All their heads turned, seeing the monstrous, purpleheaded plant at the end of the room shaking and trembling, before collapsing to the ground. Yellow bile was flowing from a small hole in its stalk. A few seconds later, it had stopped moving.

Ivy turned her head to look at Harley, her face contorted in pure rage.

Harley dropped the gun, letting it fall to the ground with a loud clang.

"I- I'm sorry Ivy, I didn't mean to-"

"You killed him!" Ivy screamed, her hair raising, billowing around her head in every direction, her voice amplified, her eyes losing their irises, glowing brightly.

Vines were shooting up from the ground, wiggling wildly, making their way towards Harley.

One made a move to grab her waist, but Harley jumped into the air, spinning around and landing on her feet a few meters away.

"Kill her! Don't let her escape!" Ivy was yelling, enraged, as she pointed her finger at her former partner.

More vines shot up from the ground, and Harley had to use every acrobatic jump she could think of to dodge through the attacking forest, jumping in hoops, curling herself into a ball, and weaving herself out from the vines.

The plants were fast, but it seemed like Harley was faster, making her way to a far away door, going through it, out of sight.

Monika rised from her bed, and her and Ivy walked over to the giant purple plant with teeth, laying pitifully in its corner. Ivy collapsed to her knees, sobbing.

Monika felt awkward, standing there with the crying supervillainess and the dead plant. She'd never been at a funeral before, but she doubted she'd know what to say in this situation even if she'd been at a thousand.

Should she take this opportunity to leave the warehouse?

No, all the compassion in the world didn't make up for the fact that she'd be leaving behind a mentally unstable woman who could control all plant life. Plus, she had no way of knowing how far Harley had gotten. She wouldn't put it past her to have a sniper ready to take her out the moment she was out on the street.

Better to be staying here, for now. Once Ivy had gotten over the death of her plant, maybe she could start convincing her to let her go.

"I'm sorry about... him."" She said, feeling incredibly awkward, as she sat down next to Ivy, looking at the gigantic plant. "Did... did he have a name?"

"I called him Alex." Ivy said, tears flowing freely from her eyes.

"How... how old was Alex?"

"T-two months." Ivy sobbed, hiding her face behind her hands. "I made him from scratch. He was the first of his kind. He... he was going to finally k-kill B-Batman!"

Her voice broke, and she made a bunch of half-choked noises.

Monika clapped her shoulder a few times. This situation was so weird to be in.

"I- I'm sure he wouldn't have stood a chance against Alex."

Poison Ivy turned her head, looking into Monika's eyes. Then, she threw her arms around her, and tightened her grip.

Monika tried resisting, thinking it was an attack at first. Maybe Ivy had realized she _had_ messed with her emotions, and had come to the correct conclusion that it was her fault Alex had died, but no, it seemed like it was just a hug. It felt strangely... nice. She didn't have many friends, so it wasn't that common for her to receive hugs. Last one had been from her new friend at school.

She really liked getting them, and hoped her last one wouldn't be from Poison Ivy.

"Thank you so much for being here, Monika. I don't know what I'd do without you."

_Oh boy._

How the hell should she respond to that? 'No problem Ivy, any time you wanna kidnap me and make me twist your emotions to make your best friend into your new worst enemy, I'm your gal!'

She supposed she could just use the first part of that.

"No... no problem, Ivy." She said, and clasped her own arms around Ivy, laying her hands on her bare shoulders. She really wished she would wear more clothes. This was so weird.

Eventually, after many tears had been shed, Ivy turned to the dead plant, and laid her hands on its lifeless, purple head. She began saying that she loved him, that he was taken from her too soon, and he would be remembered, before bending her head down, and planting a kiss on the head.

Soon enough, cracks started forming in the plant at a fast rate, before the entire thing withered apart, and what looked like white snowflakes floated from what now resembled a big pile of ash.

"Spores." Ivy said, gesturing towards the snowflakes. "They'll drift around the room for a week, settling themselves on the other plants, making them healthier, stronger. Alex c-can help them even though he himself is d-dead."

She started crying again, and Monika once again had no idea what to do.

She decided against altering her Sliders to stop her crying. She'd really messed things up today, and she wasn't entirely sure if it was for the better, or worse. Plus, she doubted she could handle more pain from manipulating them for more than a few milimeters, and that wouldn't be nearly enough.

She settled to just be a shoulder for Ivy to cry on for the rest of the day, wondering how on earth she would ever get out of this mess.

* * *

Monika was running across the grassy fields, a determined smile on her face as she rushed towards her goal.

The castle was off in the distance, spiralling brick walls towering up way past the eye could see. Inside, she knew the princess was waiting for her, captured by the evil menace who'd been plaguing this land for too long.

Monika jumped, launching herself several feet into the air, connecting her outstretched fist with a block floating in midair. The block glittered, and Alex, the giant carnivorous plant emerged from it, giving her a toothy grin before exploding, spores spreading all over the place.

Monika laughed joyfully as she landed on the ground again, extending her arms into the air to collect as many of the descending spores as she could, even sticking out her tongue to catch some in her mouth.

Tasted like candyfloss.

She felt their power surge through her, and moved forward, travelling several meters with a single step.

A speed boost!

She started running, and the world started to blur around her as she built up speed. She'd reach the castle in no time!

Reptilian monsters were guarding the castle, holding onto swords, hammers and axes as they watched her approach. She plunged her feet into the ground, sliding a bit as her momentum stopped. Some of the monsters hissed menacingly at her.

She smirked. Clearly, they had no idea who they were dealing with.

She leapt into the air, laughing ecstatically as the creatures stared up after her, dumbfounded by her sheer speed and agility. They didn't even move out of the way as she landed on their faces, making them explode into a dustcloud of glitter and confetti. A couple of them started running away, clearly unprepared for her raw power.

She looked on as she watched them slither away, their tails wiggling in panic. She raised her hands, aiming them towards the fleeting menaces. She couldn't let them escape. They were worth points.

Flames surged from her hands, as orbs of crimson ember shot out of her palms, bouncing along the plains as they made impact with the monsters. They screamed out in fear as the orbs connected with their bodies, but the noises quickly died out as they were consumed by the flames, and dematerialized into more dustclouds of glitter. Repeating the process a few times, she turned her gaze towards the only reptile left, a small one who hadn't bothered to run, instead leaning up against the brick wall of the castle, as if hoping she would somehow miss it.

Fat chance.

It screamed in fear as she raised her hand towards the creature, the glow from her palm reflected in it's wide eye, before it too, was obliterated from this world.

Monika heard a loud _ding_ from above, and turned her head upward to see giant floating numbers, changing colours as they showed her score.

Satisfied, Monika pulled a lever embedded into the castle wall, releasing the drawbridge which revealed the giant dark doorway into the building.

Monika started proceeding inside, ready to get to the next level, but stopped when she saw slight movement in the darkness.

She squinted her eyes, trying to see through the blackness, and spotted a small, feminine figure, sitting alone on a chair in the middle of the room. The princess?

No. Not the princess.

She was dressed in a red and black court jester outfit, the white frills covering her neck littered with bells that jingled omniously even though the figure wasn't moving at all. Her back was turned to Monika, and her head was turned downwards, hiding her face.

Monika tried to say something, but found that her lips were glued together. She tried to move, but found a similar situation had happened to her legs. She could only stand there, and the loss of control sent cold shivers down her spine.

The figure turned her head slightly, not enough to reveal her face, but Monika noticed how odd her movements, no, her whole textures seemed to be. Like an early computer graphic animation, with blurry surfaces that didn't match the rest of the world.

_"Is this all a game to you, Monika?"_

The voice was scratchy, and seemed to come from far away, through the speakers of an old, busted radio, and yet it was right in her ear. She tried to scream, tried to will her body to move, to run away, but instead, she took a step towards the figure in the chair.

She didn't want to approach it. It was wrong, it would bring her harm, it would kill her if she got closer. But her body was moving towards it regardless, ignoring her panicked thoughts and pleas to turn around and run away.

She could move her lips again, and she struggled to say something, plead for her life, anything at all.

"I- I- I- P- p- pl- ple-"

She was so afraid, she couldn't even form words, instead stuttering meaninglessly.

The figure rose from its chair with weird, distorted janky movements. Monika saw that its limbs ended in sharp points, without hands or feet.

_"You were never in control, Monika. They were."_

The scratchy voice was louder now, yelling and hissing aggressively at her.

Then, it turned its head, and Monika's heart rose to her throat.

A pale white face without eyes or mouth, instead sporting only three black squares, pulsating, no, _glitching_ wildly. It reached out for her with its pointed limbs, screeching at her.

She could move again, and quickly turned around, running as fast as she could, away from the creature, but after a few meters she collided with an invisible barrier, and fell.

Stunned, she got to her feet again, and held up a hand, feeling the glass wall in front of her. She curled her hands into fists, pounding at the wall, trying to scream, the creature would catch up to her any minute now!

The wall didn't budge, and no sound came out of her throat.

Static noise was growing louder behind her, and she looked around despite herself. The monster was standing in front of her, pointed limbs stabbing into the ground, black squares flickering madly around its face, but that wasn't the most horrifying part.

She could see its Sliders. They weren't flowing peacefully around it, instead zooming around at speeds so fast she couldn't even read the words, and the bars were going haywire, constantly refilling and emptying themselves.

_"Look to your saviours, Monika!"_

The monster pointed its limb behind her, and Monika turned her head, looking at the glass wall. She could look through it now, seeing a whole other world. A slightly lit room, with a giant silhouette of a person, sitting at a desk chair, observing her panic without even moving. The dark shadows obscured his face, so she couldn't make out any features. His hands were holding what appeared to be a massive computer mouse, and keyboard.

With crushing dread, she realized what she was looking at.

A screen.

And she was on the wrong side.

Monika yelped, and woke up in the flower bed covered in cold sweat, taking in quick breaths. It took her a few seconds to remember where she was, and why.

Kidnapped. Warehouse. Supervillains.

She sighed heavily, laying her head back in the soft flowers. She never thought she'd be relieved to find herself here. What a horrible nightmare. She'd been so scared, and yet now that she was lying here, able to think rationally, she was kinda embarrased at how nonsensical it had been. Why had her brain thinked up that scenario?

She turned in her bed, trying to lay more comfortably. Plants, although not exactly unpleasant, still made for an unusual bed, that she hadn't gotten used to yet. Oh god, she hoped she wouldn't be there long enough to get used to them.

It was really dark in the empty warehouse. Her nightmare hadn't faded enough, and her heart was still beating a bit too fast as she pictured the monster in her dream again. That face...

She tried to think pleasant thoughts. School. Piano. Books.

It didn't work. She was still scared.

She turned to her other side, hoping the movement would somehow distract her mind from her thoughts, and her eyes saw a red and black figure directly in front of her.

Her heart skipped a beat, and her blood ran cold. She remembered the creature from her dream, its janky movements, its feetless legs, its scratchy voice, its face... She kept her eyes trained on the lower torso. She didn't want to look up and see the face again.

She shut her eyes, hard. It was just a second dream, nothing more. A very realistic dream. Where she could clearly feel everything around her. And had clearer thoughts than in any other dream she'd had. And she knew it was a dream.

_It's not a dream._

She kept her eyes closed. She should have run the moment she saw it. Called for Ivy. She could still do that, if it were still there. Maybe it had left? Had she fooled it into thinking she was sleeping? Why would that matter? Why didn't it just stab her with those pointed limbs?

She opened her eyes just to check. Nothing there.

She sighed, relieved. Just an afterimage from the dream. That was a thing, right? Things like that happened all the time. Totally.

She turned around on her back, closing her eyes and tried to relax. She should try to get to sleep again. Maybe tomorrow she could make some progress in escaping this pla-

A sudden blunt impact on her mouth made her eyes open, and see a white face staring at her from upside down. At first she thought it was the monster from her nightmare, but she quickly noticed that instead of black squares it was a domino mask behind which were the angry blue eyes of Harley Quinn.

Not much better than the monster, really.

The villain's hand was clasped tightly on top of her mouth, preventing her from screaming. She could see the Sliders around Harley's face, Joy being a slightly lighter shade of orange, and Anger being bright green.

She was in trouble.

"I'm going to remove my hand." Harley said, in a quiet, calm voice. "I have a gun. If ya try and scream, yer gonna die. I probably will too, since Ivy will awaken. But I will get ya first. So it's in both of our best interests to not make a sound, capisce?"

Monika didn't trust for a second that she wouldn't try to kill her regardless of if she stayed quiet or not, but nodded anyway, and felt the hand move away from her mouth.

"Gettup." Harley whispered, and Monika got out of the bed.

Maybe she could save herself by messing with the Sliders? She opened up Harley's Compassion folder, and searched for her own name.

_Oh wow._

She could barely even see the thin line of red that made up her Slider. Bringing that thing up would take time, and it would likely knock her out from sheer pain.

"I know what yer thinking of, and lemme just warn ya." Harley said, pulling her gun out and aiming it directly at Monika's head. "I dunno _how_ yer doing it, but if I feel any sudden mood swings or unexplainable feelings towards ya or anyone else, imma shoot ya. And I'm pretty sure I have bipolar disorder in the grab-bag of mental illnesses I've stacked up over the years, so ya best be _really_ careful about yer next move."

Monika collapsed the Compassion folder, nodding to show that she understood.

"Great. Now move. Out the door by the end of the room. Careful ya don't touch any plants, or else."

Monika obliged, moving slowly towards the door, squinting in the darkness to make sure there wasn't any leaves or vines on the ground that she'd accidentally step on.

What was Harley's plan here? She'd said she was willing to die by Ivy's hands if it meant killing her too, but only if she alerted Ivy first. Was Harley going to make her go far enough out of reach so she could just kill her without dying herself? Should she really be resisting, call out for Ivy and making sure Harley took the fall as well? Would it help if she died, knowing her killer would face the same consequence?

It really was a lose-lose situation. She had to hope that a better opportunity would present itself in a bit.

They reached the door, and Harley waved her gun from behind, signaling for Monika to open it. Behind the door was a long dark, narrow tunnel with another set of doors by the end.

"Pam likes ta keep her domain contained to one area." Harley whispered. "Think of this as an airlock, making sure that our warehouse is isolated from the rest of the city. Now, move. We ain't got all night."

Monika started walking, hyper aware of the fact that she had no way of escape. She ran to the doors, Harley would shoot her. She couldn't turn around, because Harley was right behind her, and would shoot. She couldn't do anything with her Sliders, and fighting her head on was suicide.

Her heart pounded as she reached the other set of doors, and, getting approval from Harley, opened them.

Cold night air overwhelmed her senses, and she stood still, taking it all in. The air in the warehouse had been vaguely damp and moist, like that of a greenhouse. Even though it had probably been cleaner inside, the faint feeling of Gotham City's lightly polluted air felt good on her skin.

_Well, at least if I die now, it'll be in the city I grew up in._

It was a very depressing thought, but she couldn't really do any better than that.

"Keep moving." Harley said, impatiently.

Monika stepped further outside.

She'd never guess they'd been here all this time. It was a bleary old construction site, filled with abandoned, half finished buildings. She looked behind her to see the warehouse, littered with grafitti, no hints whatsoever of the jungle inside.

She stopped sightseeing when Harley grabbed her roughly by her uniform's collar, and dragged her to the side. She didn't attempt to resist. What chance did she have?

A particularly hard pull from the jester send her stumbling, colliding into the wall of one of the half-finished buildings. She grunted slightly at the impact.

A primal yell from behind alerted her, and she turned her head just in time to see Harley's raised fist come flying towards her, and next thing she knew, she was collapsed on the ground, a dull pain on her cheek. She moved her hand up to touch the spot gingerly. It was wet. Blood.

She'd never been slapped or hit her entire life, and in less than a day, she'd tried both. By the same person. She preferred the slap, because while that had stung more, the pain from the fist was harder, and it lingered. Like an aftertaste.

She looked up at Harley, who was panting heavily, shoulders rising and falling rythmically.

"Do ya have ANY idea," She said, moving her leg backwards, before kicking it straight in between Monika's ribs, making her lose all the air in her lungs, and causing her head to fall down into the gravel on the ground again.

"...how bad a day I've had today?!" Harley screamed at her, and kicked her again. Monika gasped, struggling to breathe. It felt like she could only suck in the absolute minimum of air required.

"Everyone keeps telling me how bad Mistah J is for me. How he abuses me, brainwashed me, ruined my life. But if that miserable clown taught me anything at all, it was to smile when things got hard, to laugh when life deals ya shitty cards. And now, thanks to _you,"_

Another kick. Monika coughed wildly, and when she opened her eyes she could make out dark wet stains in the twilight, on the gravel in front of her face.

"...I can't even do that anymore!" Harley finished. "My life is a mess, but at least before, it was an entertaining mess! One I could think back on, and laugh! Now, everything's just dark and depressing and _not. funny!"_

She emphasized the last two words by kicking Monika's side twice. Monika just grit her teeth, and took the blows, waiting for her to fire the gun. There was no way she was getting away this time. This was her final stand, and if she had to die, at least she wouldn't give Harley the satisfaction of seeing her cry again.

"Is this how normal people feel? If so, I hate it! I don't dress up in spandex because I wanna be normal! What's the point of insanity if I can't even _fucking_ laugh about it?!"

Another kick.

"But hey, at least I've got my best friend, Poison Ivy, to help me through this scary new part of my life. She's the shining light in this swirling sea of shit that ya turned my mind into. With her by my side, we can overcome everything, together!"

Harley took a deep breath, then screamed at the top of her lungs.

"Except ya had to take her away from me too!" She bellowed, her voice breaking. "It wasn't enough for ya to remove my happiness, the one thing I use to _cope_ with this horrible world we live in, ya had to make the one person who could help me through it hate my guts!"

Three kicks to Monika's side.

_Just get it over with already._

Harley panted loudly. Then, her voice became quieter, more level.

"Felt good to get that out. Alright girlie, now scram."

Monika looked up, seeing Harley's look of uncaring disdain on her face, wondering if she'd heard correctly. Was this a joke? She shouldn't be able to make those.

"W-what?" She asked, hesitantly.

"Ya heard me. Scram. Git. Leave, and never come back." Harley said. "I didn't kick ya too hard, so the internal bleeding shouldn't be that bad."

"Why-" Monika coughed. "Why aren't you killing me?"

"Believe me, I want to. More than anything else right now. If I thought killing ya would put an end to the things ya've done to me and Ivy's head, we wouldn't be having this talk right now. Heck, if I were still able to laugh, I'd probably just shoot ya because it'd be funny. But this thing ya've done to me is making me think differently than usual. It's making me think rationally."

She stuck her tongue out and made a gagging sound, as if disgusted by the word she'd had to utter.

"Ya made Ivy inta a member of yer fanclub. If I want any hope of becoming friends with her again, I can't kill ya. I can't cover my tracks well enough for her to not find out, and I can't lie to her if I want her trust."

She sighed.

"It's gonna be tough regardless. She was really proud of Alex. I'mma need to pull out all the stops for this screwup. Take the dishes for three months. Invite her to dinners. Some real romantic crap."

She looked at Monika, and the student saw tears roll down her cheek from behind her mask, staining her makeup.

"But I _will_ make it up to her. I won't let the mind-whammy of some snot-nosed brat end the thing we have together. I will not let _you_ decide the feelings I have. Yer a nobody, and I'm Harley fucking Quinn!"

Monika could see her Joy Slider go up at that, just a little bit.

"I hate ya. More than I've ever hated anyone else in my whole life, and I've met some real jerks. But yer so insignificant, I can't even be bothered to off ya."

Monika couldn't believe it. She was actually getting to live? She struggled to rise from the ground, coughing as she did. Her side was doing a real number on her.

Harley had turned her back on Monika, and was already walking back towards the warehouse.

"Oh, and Monika?"

Monika looked up, stunned. That was the first time Harley had said her name correctly. The Jester had turned her head, looking at Monika with a sideway glance.

"If I ever see you again, I won't hesitate. Not even a second. I will kill you."

Her voice was low, having lost the highpitched girly aspect, sounding almost... normal.

Monika swallowed.

"Noted." She said.

"Hurry up and leave already, before I change my mind. Bi-polar, remember?"

With great effort, Monika managed to get to her feet. She looked behind her, making sure Harley wasn't turning around, yelling "PSYCHE!" wielding a giant mallet.

She took a tentative step, grunted, and grasped her side as pain shot through her body.

_Keep moving. Don't show weakness. Get home._

She started staggering off the construction side.

* * *

It took her a while to get to a street sign, finally discovering that she was somewhere in Amusement Mile.

She rolled her eyes.

_Of course that's where they were._

She still felt the pain in her side with every step, but she could hide it better now. With a clear idea of where she was now, she started making her way home.

The streets of Gotham were almost completely deserted. She knew it was a very poor part of town she was in right now, and not many people came here, even at decent hours.

The thought of calling the police occurred to her, but she quickly dismissed it. She no longer had a phone, and no money for a payphone. Plus she'd probably had to be present for the arrest, and she just wanted to get home, and get some sleep.

She was so tired.

She had her head bent low, and as a result, didn't notice the woman right in front of her, colliding with her side. She was thankful it wasn't the side Harley had kicked.

"Oi, watch where yer goin'!"

"Sorry, didn't see y-" Monika paused mid-sentence, as she looked up at the woman.

Her hair was buzzed short at her sides, leaving a mo-hawk of sorts in the middle, a very cheap dye colouring it red. Her ears and nose were littered with piercings, and her face itself were covered in a very unappealing glitter-mascara. Her clothes consisted of a tight lowcut blouse that didn't even go down to her navel, showcasing a massive chest, which unlike Ivy's, left no doubt of their plastic origins.

Below the torso were some ripped shorts that started late and ended early, followed by some fishnet stockings and a pair of high heels.

A lit cigarette were resting between her fingers. It didn't take much guesswork to figure out what her profession was.

But it wasn't her appearance that made Monika silent. It was the Sliders.

They were floating lightly around the woman, the same way as the ones on Ivy and Harley had. Anger bright yellow, Joy almost as low as Harley's had been at the peak of Monika's tampering, Sadness a healthy green.

They really were on everyone, weren't they?

"Wot's with the staring?" The woman asked, looking annoyed at her. Monika couldn't bring herself to answer.

"Ya looking ta hire me for the night?" She asked, raising an overly long, fake eyebrow. "How old are ya even? Nevermind, don't wanna know. I'm not really into girls, so it's gonna cost ya extra. If ya got any booze, I'll give ya a discount tho."

Monika snapped out of her thoughts, realizing what she was saying. Disgusted, she pulled up the woman's Shame Slider, and made it go up.

Almost immediately, the woman held a hand to her head, and looked at her other hand, holding the cigarette. She dropped it on the ground, snuffing it out with the tip of her boot.

"Wot am I doing with my life..." She mumbled, walking away.

Monika grasped her own head.

_Stupid._

Now she had both side pains, and head pains.

She reflected a bit on how easy that had been, messing a bit with a Slider and making the street walker reflect on her life choices, just like that. It didn't feel real. She hadn't seemed real. Like she was just an... NPC, for lack of a better term. A Nonplayable Character, simply added to give the world around her some flavor, to seem more realistic. With exposed stats that Monika were able to freely manipulate as she pleased. Were everyone else on the planet like that? Were they all... fake?

She caught some movement out of the corner of her eye, and turned her head.

She gasped.

She was looking at the window of a closed shop, seeing her own vague reflection. Her hair was a mess, and even in the faint light of a flickering streetlamp she could see the bruise near her lip from where Harley had hit her.

And she saw something else, too.

Did this mean...?

She shook her head, looking away from the reflective glass surface, and walked briskly away. She was way too tired to even begin thinking about what this meant for her existence. She looked upwards, spotting a neon clock perched on a building high above, accompanied by some gargoyles. 01:23. She really needed to go to bed. Tomorrow was a school day. First thing when she got home would be to collapse in her bed.

A rank smell invaded her nostrils, and she raised her arm high, and lowered her head to sniff at her armpit.

She made a face.

Maybe she should shower first.


	2. Welcome To The Club!

For most young boys, the prospect of going to school didn't bring much incentive for excitement, especially on a warm summer's day like this, which could be much better spent on going to the beach, having picnics with friends and loved ones, or simply enjoy the weather by yourself.

For most young boys, the bus ride to the school in itself was torture, essentially giving them a slideshow of all the things they could be doing, while bringing them even closer to the building they would be sitting inside of all day, looking out the window, wishing they could leave the place.

But Jon Kent wasn't most young boys, and he would not be taking the bus to school.

Having eaten a nutritious and healthy breakfast consisting of the popular cereal brand, "Sugar Frosted Chocolate Bombs," and washing it down with a big glass of lemonade, Jon hurried to brush his teeth, getting it done in record time. He looked himself over in the bathroom mirror, seeing a smiling boy with wide, blue eyes and messy, dark hair.

He considered taking a comb to tidy it up a little, to maybe make a good impression on his first day at the high school his parents had gotten him into, but decided it would be a futile effort considering how he was going to get there.

He checked his watch. Fifteen minutes until the bell rang, at a school hundreds of miles away from their apartment in Metropolis. He would have spare time!

He headed inside his room, nearly tripping over a mess of action figures resembling various superheroes, school books, dirty underwear and plates on the floor. He let out a groan.

He'd forgotten to clean his room, after promising his mom he would before going to bed. He supposed he _could_ get it done quickly now... but then he wouldn't have time to mingle with the other kids when arriving. Oh well, he'd do it later. What were the chances that his mom, the three times Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter, Lois Lane, would check his room while he was gone?

He leapt over the mess of small torsos, arms and legs on his floor, landing in front of his closet, and opened it, revealing the assigned gray student uniform, accompanied by the standard blue pants.

Taking it off the hanger, he spun around, appearing as a blurry tornado of sorts as the clothes he was wearing started flying off him, landing at various random places in his room. He slowed down to a stop, looked down at himself, inspecting the uniform he was now wearing. He'd learned that trick from his dad, Clark Kent, or, as he was more commonly known as to the world at large, Superman.

He grabbed his backpack lying on the floor, and quickly grabbed all the books he could spot from the heap on the floor, stuffing them all inside the bag.

Closing his door, and putting a "DO NOT DISTURB" sign on the handle for good measure, he headed into the kitchen where he was met by the familiar clacking of a keyboard from his mother, sitting at the dinner table, a steaming mug of coffee beside her.

She was still in her casual night clothes, not having gotten properly dressed yet. Her hair, usually straight and smooth was sticking out to all sides, a serious case of bedhair. Beneath the table, Jon could see her wearing wooly blue slippers with a familiar red and yellow S knitted on. It was such a strange parallel to the appearance she put on to the public, where she'd wear formfitting, expensive designer-made outfits. Usually purple.

He knew she liked getting a bit of writing done on whatever the new article was about before she'd get dressed properly and head out to her work at the Daily Planet, where she'd write some more. And then she'd get home in the evening, ready to write again.

He knew there was a bit more to her work than just writing, but it was fun to think that she'd put the time and effort into getting dressed and travel the busy roads of Metropolis, just so she could resume the work she'd already been doing at home.

Hearing Jon approach, she looked up from her laptop, purple eyes twinkling as she took in his appearance, a smile on her face.

"My, don't you look handsome in that uniform." She said teasingly, turning her eyes down to her writing again. Others might see this behaviour as her prioritizing her work over her family, but anyone who'd met Lois knew that writing was such second-hand nature to her that she could do it in her sleep. She had no problem carrying a conversation while writing an expertly crafted exposé of some corrupt organization.

"Those Gotham girls better watch out." She resumed. "They won't know who, or what hit them."

"Mo-om!" Jon said, embarrased, a blush appearing on his face. But he couldn't suppress the goofy grin that took shape at Lois' jab.

"Nervous?" His mom asked casually, keeping her eyes on the screen.

"A bit." Jon said, moving over to the window, unclasping it and opening it wide, letting in a slight breeze. "Which is so weird. I've battled monsters, supervillains, even natural disasters. Why does going to school of all things seem like the bigger deal among those things?"

"Being a superhero doesn't prepare you for anything that happens at school." Lois said, knowingly, as she continued typing away. "I know it's a cliché thing to say, but just be yourself. They'll love you there."

"Be myself, huh?" Jon asked, a mischievous smile on his face as he jumped up at the windowsill, looking outside, checking for any potential watchers. "Does that mean revealing my identity to them?"

"You know what I meant, smart guy." Lois said tersely, looking up at him.

He grinned, and turned his body to stick his legs out of the wide open window.

"Have a great day at school, kiddo. Your father will be proud."

Jon smiled, giving her a thumbs up. "I will, thanks mom."

"Hey, by the way, did you remember to clean your roo-"

"Gottagoloveyoubyeeee!" Jon yelled, and jumped out of the window of their 25th story apartment.

He felt the wind rush in his hair as he fell at breakneck speed towards the pavement below. It had definitely been the right call not to comb his hair.

As he got closer and closer to the ground, he appreciated that his parents had gotten their apartment where they had, in this less populated part of Metropolis. There were barely any people on the streets here, even on a warm Monday morning such as this one. It meant less people to see a kid like him jump from windows and his dad returning home from a day of saving people by flying in via the door on the rooftop.

Of course, they _could_ get inside via the staircase below... but that was just so boring when you could fly.

His thoughts now on flying, he looked to the ground again.

_Oh wow, that's close._

The meters apart from him and the pavement were in the single digits now. He decided that was enough of him messing around, and turned in the air.

He pointed a raised fist towards the sky, and surged upwards, much faster than he had been falling. Although he'd done this hundreds of times before, he let out a laugh. This never got old.

His surroundings blurred in front of him as he took on more speed. He was above even the tallest skyscrabers now, not concerned anymore with who might be watching through their windows. He was too fast for them to get a good look at him anyway. He was tempted to fly through the clouds above, but decided against it. He'd wasted enough time already, and plus, he'd be completely soaked. The world was his map, as he looked down to get a bird's eye view of his whereabouts, seeing that he had now left the city of Metropolis, and flying above the open ocean now. Really, how could normal human travel compare to flight?

He shook his head, chastising himself. His dad hadn't taught him to look down on regular people like that. Just because he had powers and they didn't, shouldn't make him think he was suddenly better than them.

That wasn't the Superman way.

And really, it wasn't like his way of travelling was so much better. Sure, it was quicker, and more fun than going through the various security measures of airports to sit in a plane that he could easily outspeed anyway, but it was also lonelier. It was unlikely that he was going to make friends with anyone except birds, flying so high above everyone else. Which hopefully, going to this school would fix.

He smiled as he could now see his destination.

Gotham City.

Although it had a lot of the same types of buildings as Metropolis, with perhaps just a tad less skyscrabers, the differences were striking. Where his City sported a lot of new, modern buildings with the latest advances in design and metal, likely a result of the many times supervillains had crashed through buildings while fighting the Man of Steel, Gotham seemed attached to its gothic, rustic aesthetic, with gargoyles of all things hanging from nearly every perch, and the buildings themselves just being... darker, than the more clean steel of Metropolis.

Jon knew which city he preferred, but he could still appreciate the look of this place.

He floated in the air, scanning the place for where he was supposed to go. It wasn't his first visit to the city, but he'd only visited the school once before, when he and his dad had enlisted him there. He looked past the toxic looking neon sign of Ace Chemicals, whose giant chimneys were billowing out dark smoke, thinking that was just a pollution lawsuit waiting to happen. He saw the enormous black monolith of Wayne Tower, which always reminded him of the Lexcorp building back at Metropolis, though he knew the owner of this building was a bit nicer. A bit.

He turned his head, seeing more landmarks, like the glass dome of the Botanical Gardens, the shady-looking neon signs of the Iceberg Lounge, and did a double take when he saw that the rundown theme park in Amusement Mile was somehow open. Half of the contraptions in there looked like a serious safety hazard, not to mention the implications of a park like that in a city that had a bad history with clowns.

He shook his head. It seemed like madness to him, but he wasn't here to judge the architectural choices of the city, and how they seemed to cater directly to the various infamous supervillains that resided here. Maybe Gothamites were just made of sterner stuff. They kinda had to be, to live in a town like this.

He flew around a bit more, looking for Wayne Manor, which he knew was close to his high school. Once he found that, it would probably be easier to locate his destination.

_A mansion at the top of a hill. Can't be that hard to locate. Maybe there...?_

But a shiver went down his spine once he realized what the place he was looking at, was. It was a big building, certainly mansion-like, on top of a hill with a small, narrow road snaking its way up. But this place didn't have the welcoming flowers or well-kept gardens, or luxurious fountains of Wayne Manor.

Instead, at the end of the narrow road, it had a fencegate made of the blackest metal Jon had ever seen, the bars at the top bent in shapes to spell out the name of the establishment in big, bold, black letters.

Arkham Asylum.

Jon Kent tried to control his heartrate, wondering if the faint sound of maniacal laughter he could hear in his head was his imagination springing to life at the look of the infamous building, or if his superhearing was picking up the noises from inside. He chose to go with the former, and turned in the air, flying away.

He wasn't scared of the place, of course. Not at all. He just wasn't supposed to be there. Yeah, that was it.

At long last, he discovered the hill at the other end of the city with the extravagant Wayne Manor perched on top of it. From there, it was easy enough to spot his new high school, the yard in front of it busy with activity as students were moving about everywhere, getting inside before the bell rang, or simply meeting up and chatting with friends.

Jon had to be careful here. He couldn't just land in front of everyone, and reveal his identity as the half human/half Kryptonian son of Superman to the school.

He glided over to the roof of the building, so people wouldn't look up and notice the flying boy in the air. From there, he moved at superspeed, running down the wall of the building, faster than anyone could see, and landed in a bush below. Brushing himself off, he smiled, emerged from the bush, and was now amongst the other students, none of them the wiser.

He was a genius.

"So. You're here."

A familiar voice drawled from behind him, and he turned around to see a boy with short, dark hair pointed upwards, and a bored, unimpressed look on his pale face. He was casually carrying his backpack slung over one shoulder, and was wearing the same student uniform as Jon.

Jon's eyes lit up.

"Damian!" Jon said happily, raising his arms and moving forwards with purpose to hug his friend, who took a step back, raising his arm in a 'stop' motion.

"Yeah, no. We're not doing hugs." Damian said, sounding offended at the idea.

"The heck we are!" Jon said, and ignoring Damian's protests, threw his arms around him, lifting him above the ground, and squeezed lightly.

"You know I can kill you in sixteen different ways without even having to resort to kryptonite, right?" Damian whispered angrily into Jon's ear. Jon smiled unconcernedly at his threat, and let him go.

Damian sighed, rolled his eyes, and flattened out the wrinkles on his uniform left by Jon's embrace.

"What would Batman think about you threatening to kill me?" Jon asked, raising a teasing eyebrow.

"What Father doesn't know, won't harm him." Damian said, and Jon rolled his eyes.

"You really should become better at stealth." Damian told him, gesturing up to the sky with his eyes. "I saw you coming from a mile away, and you just lingered up there, in full view of the entire yard for at least two seconds."

Jon rolled his eyes again. He had his doubts anyone except Damian Wayne could have discovered him up there, and he had the unfair advantage of being trained by his father, who had to be a bit more observant than anyone else in his line of work.

"Ohh no, two whole seconds!" Jon said, in a sarcastic tone. "Surprised the whole schoolyard isn't filled with people confronting me about it yet."

"Yes, it is strange." Damian said, looking behind him at the other students, most of them with their faces buried in their phones. "I was worried I was going to have to cause a distraction with a smoke bomb to keep them from noticing you."

Jon couldn't quite tell by the tone of his voice if he was being serious. Probably not. But then again...

"Well, we should probably keep moving. Don't wanna be late for class!" Jon said excitedly, moving towards the building's opening, but was stopped when Damian raised a hand, blocking his path.

"Aren't you forgetting something, _Superboy?"_ He asked, putting emphasis on the last word.

Jon looked confused, tilting his head, not understanding what Damian meant.

_"-TT-"_ Damian made a scoffing noise. "Your 'secret identity?' Or was the spectacle you put on in the air a few minutes ago you finally revealing yourself to the public?"

Jon stared at him for a few more seconds, but then it dawned on him.

He moved his hand up towards his face, touching around his eyes.

"Oh!" Jon exclaimed, and started patting his pockets, hoping he hadn't forgotten.

Locating the missing object in his pants pocket, he fished out a pair of heavily rimmed glasses, and put them on his face. The glasses did nothing to make him see better, instead serving as a disguise he could put on so peope wouldn't tie his identity to his alter ego, Superboy. He smiled brightly, and gave Damian a thumbs up.

Damian merely rolled his eyes in response.

"You and your dad's disguises are so bareboned, it's a wonder people haven't caught onto you yet, and then you forget the one thing it's all relying on. Incredible."

"Hey, it's not just the glasses!" Jon said, offended at his father's behalf. "Dad hunches. He does all these small things to differentiate Clark Kent from Superman."

"I see. And do you hunch as well?" Damian asked.

"Well, no, I-"

"So, my argument still stands. You just almost exposed yourself to the entire school, because you forgot about the one thing you use to hide." Damian smirked, pleased with himself.

"Whatever." Jon groaned. As always, it was exhausting and infuriating to argue with Damian. "I sincerely doubt anyone in this school would ever think that Superboy would attend here. I'm not even that well known in my own city, these guys wouldn't suspect a thing."

"Irrelevant. You can never be too careful." Damian shrugged, and moved towards the school doors with the rest of the class.

Jon got an idea then, and caught up to the boy.

"Hey, that reminds me. Have you gotten your secret identity in order for our time here? If not, we can always resort to the old familiar, _Garth."_

Damian stopped, cringing as Jon knew he would at the mention of the name. He turned to look at Jon with a look of disdain on his face.

"What? No. What?"

"Come on, it worked out great over in Hamilton County! No one suspected a thing!"

"It was completely unnecessary! Even back then! Damian Wayne _is_ my secret identity, there was no need for you to come up with that idiotic Garth thing!"

"I don't know," Jon said, smirking. "You can never be too careful, right?"

Damian groaned, and pinched the bridge of his nose, as Jon giggled.

"Remind me again why we're even doing this." Damian said, his voice dripping with annoyance.

"Uh, okay. Sure." Jon said, oblivious to Damian's tone of voice.

"It all started a few weeks ago, when we were having dinner after one of our team-ups between our dads. As my dad struggled to keep a conversation going with yours, since he would only respond with single word replies and grunts, he got to the topic of my school, which had gotten shrunk down by Brainiac during the team-up, as you probably remember."

"Kent..." Damian started.

"So, my dad says something along the lines of-"

Jon pushed out his chest a bit, placing both arms on his hips, and spoke in a deeper voice, imitating his father.

"Gee willickers, we're going to have to find a whole other school for him to go to now!"

"Kent, stop, I know all of-" Damian tried again

"And then _your_ dad was all like-"

Jon grabbed hold of an imaginary cape, bent low, and pulled it across the lower half of his face in a dramatic fashion, and adopted an even deeper, raspy voice.

"Hurm. It's a shame you don't have schools like the ones in Gotham, we have some of the best education establishments in America! Grr, snarl, I'm Batman, justice and vengeance hurm!"

"My Father does _not_ sound like tha-"

"And like, I guess it makes sense, since your criminals are all these genius doctors and chemists, right? They had to get that education from somewhere. Anyway, so they got to talking about how you could use some school-attending as well, which you seemed really offended by at the time, because you've already had years worth of education, training with those ninja assassins and knew more than the average teacher by the age of five, and all that jazz you keep bragging about, but the more you protested, the more your dad seemed on board with the idea, telling you that education wasn't everything when attending school, and that your social skills were something that could only be improved upon, and so it was decided that you and I could attend here together, because we're like, best friends!"

Jon took a deep breath, filling his lungs after emptying them with his recap. They were now entering the doors, and were taking in the surroundings of the lit up hallway, iron cabinets standing in rows to either side of them, with students inputting their codes into the locks to store things inside the cabinets.

"You do know what a rhetorical question is, right? Because if not, I don't think this school can help you much." Damian said, mockingly.

He sighed.

"What a waste of time. 'Improve my social skills.' As if I don't have plenty of friends."

"Do you have any who aren't fellow crimefighters?" Jon asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I have Alfred." Damian said.

"I don't think that counts. Isn't he your Butler, first and foremost?"

"What's that got to do with anything?" Damian asked, glancing at Jon.

"Well, I dunno if you can call him a friend when he's getting paid for it."

_"-TT-"_ Damian scoffed. "Whatever. What's even the purpose of having friends if they can't contribute to anything?"

"By 'anything' you mean fighting crime?" Jon asked.

"What else?" Damian retorted.

Jon didn't pursue the topic.

"Well, I for one am excited. My mom did some research, and she says that of all the schools in Gotham, this one is one of the best. They've taught some of the most promising minds in the fields of science here." Jon said.

"And now they can boast of having the honour of having the future greatest hero of all time attending their school!" Damian said, smirk on his face. "And some farm boy nobody knows, too!"

"Hey, what's that supposed to m-"

"Hey! You two! Dark haired boys!"

A feminine voice calling out behind them made Jon pause, and turn around.

A girl about his height were running towards them from the end of the hallway, panting slightly from the exertion. She was wearing the standard student uniform for girls, which looked exactly like the uniform for boys, with the exception of the pants that were replaced by a navy-blue skirt that billowed around her legs as she ran as fast as she could to catch up to them.

Her hair, short for a girl, a mixture of strawberry blonde and pink, was bouncing around her head, with a big red bow wobbling dangerously on top of it, looking like it should have fallen off long ago with her moving as wildly as she did.

Her eyes, as blue as the sky, were trained directly on Jon's, which made her overlook a yellow sign on a shiny part of the floor, warning students that it had just been washed, and was slippery.

Noticing the girl was on a direct line toward the wet floor, Jon held out his hands and shook them, gesturing for her to slow down.

"Watch out, the floor's we-" he tried shouting.

"Waaa!"

It was too late. As her foot made contact with the shiny piece of floor, it slid further along than the girl had anticipated, making her lose her balance. She yelped out, flailing her arms desperately, trying to regain it even as her legs slid out from under her, and she started falling backwards, her bow finally departing from her head.

Jon saw every detail of this in slowmotion, watched as her legs kicked out uselessly in the air, saw her close her eyes, bracing for the inevitable impact with the floor.

He really shouldn't do this. Damian wouldn't approve. But... she might get seriously hurt.

Moving as a blur, he closed the meter's distance between him and the falling girl, positioning his arm under her back, halting her movement. He looked up, seeing the bow spinning slowly in the air, descending rapidy, until he snatched it up with his other hand.

Time resumed to normal, and the girl tentatively opened one blue eye, confused over why she wasn't on the floor right now.

She opened both her eyes, staring up at Jon's bespectacled face, looking into his own blue eyes. She opened her mouth slightly, blushed, and closed it again. Jon didn't really know what to say himself, blushing as well.

They stood there for a while, Jon supporting her back with his arm, his inherited strength from his dad making sure it didn't get tired, and the girl's own arms dull at her sides, fingers slightly brushing against the floor.

Damian cleared his throat, and the spell was broken.

"Uh..." Jon said, blushing deeper. "A-are you okay?"

"Y-yeah." The girl said, mirroring his own face as hers flushed scarlet. "T-thanks."

He lifted her to her feet, and they looked at each other some more, both lost for words.

"Uh. Good reflexes you got. I could have sworn you were further away from me, when I slipped." She said, looking past Jon to see Damian approach them.

"Yeah." Damian said, glaring at Jon. "So could I."

"Uh..." Jon smiled awkwardly, rubbing the back of his head. "I uh, work out."

"Oh. Oh well, thank you so much for catching me. That would have been a nasty fall. My God, I'm too clumsy for my own good." She said in a cheerful voice, lifting her arms and extended each of her index fingers so that they touched eachother.

Jon wasn't sure exactly why she was doing this, but it did look strangely cute. He blushed at this thought, looking down and realizing he still held her red bow in his hand.

"Uh, you dropped this." He said, extending his arm to hand her the bow.

Her eyes widened, lifting a hand to grope around her hair, feeling its absence.

"Stupid thing. Always falling off." She said, taking the bow and attaching it a bit to the side of her head again. "Thanks. Again."

"No problem." Jon said, unable to take his eyes off her. Why did his throat feel dry? And why was his heart pounding out of his chest?

He lowered the hand he'd used to hand her bow back, and realized a good amount of sweat was littering his palm.

_What's going on with me?_

"So, any particular reason you felt the need to run towards us that recklessly?" Damian asked harshly, his arms crossed as he stared unimpressed at the display in front of him.

Jon cringed, and hoped Damian wouldn't scare the girl away with his rough demeanor.

The girl blinked, as if she'd just realized where she was and what she was doing.

"Oh. Oh right!" She exclaimed, and she smiled at them. "Y-you guys are new here, right? I haven't seen you at all since school started two weeks ago!"

"This is our first day, yeah." Jon said.

"That's awesome! Welcome to Gotham High!" She said, beaming at them.

"Thanks!" Jon replied excitedly, smiling brightly up at her. Something about this girl just seemed to make him feel really happy for some reason. Her smile was infectious.

"Was that it? Did you just want to greet us?" Damian asked in the same tone, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

"Oh, uh." She began, smile dwindling for a second before it reappeared full force. "Well, that was part of it. But I also wanted to catch you before someone else did."

Jon looked questioningly at her.

"How would you two like..." She started, raising her arms as if she were a circus announcer presenting the next magnificent act of the show to a crowd of people. "...to join a Club? Me and my friends started it at the end of the first week, and we've been gathering people in the week after that, and we'd love to have you two!"

Damian looked up at her, a bored expression on his face.

"I think we'll pa- _mmpfgh!"_ His eyes widened as Jon raised his arm to block his mouth with his palm.

"We'd love to!" Jon said, smiling brightly up at her, ignoring Damian as he struggled in futile effort to remove Jon's hand from his face, and protest.

"Really?!" The girl exclaimed, her eyes growing bigger in pure joy. "Yaay! Thank you so much, you'll absolutely love it, I guarantee! I'm the Vice President of the club, and we already have three other members, and they're all really sweet and nice, and one of them said she'd bake cupcakes today, so this is really the best time you decided to join!"

She was clapping her hands in excitement. Jon's smile widened, as he saw the impact his agreement did on her. A slight impact at his side made him turn his head to see Damian staring at him in anger, legs furiously kicking him as he still fought against the hand blocking his mouth.

Jon removed it.

Damian stared daggers into Jon's eyes, as he half asked, half sneered "What's this club even ab-"

The rest of his question was deafened by the sound of a bell, ringing through the whole building.

"Yikes!" The girl said, staring up at a clock perched at the wall on top of the entrance doors. "Classes are starting!

She flashed Jon an apologetic smile, as she turned around.

"We'll talk after classes are done! We're at the top floor, furthest room from the stairs! See y- _wow!_ "

She slid on the wet floor again, and flailed her arms madly.

Jon was about to speed to her rescue again, but she placed her other foot behind her, regaining her footing.

"I'm okay!" She yelled, triumphantly. "See you later guys!"

And with that, she ran behind a corner, disappearing from sight.

Jon kept looking after her, staring at the corner of the wall she'd gone past with a dull look on his face. He considered using his X-Ray vision to look through the wall and make sure she got to her class safely. His dad always told him only to use that power of his in absolute emergencies, because it could be used as a big violation of privacy, but... she might need him to save her again. What if she tripped over a stair step? Or she could walk into a door someone opened in front of her? Or a freak alien race could invade the school and abduct her? It could happen, you never knew! He felt a strong urge to protect her from any and all potential dangers, and surely that was worth using the full extent of his powers on, right? It'd just be a little peek, to make sure she got to her classes all right. And got through the classes unscathed. And didn't get run down by a car on her way home from school. And then he could stand outside her house as she slept, keeping her safe from any potential burglars or earthquakes or enemy alien dictators crash landing to subjugate the earth.

He was pulled from the thoughts speeding through his mind as Damian's face suddenly entered his field of vision, a sour expression on his face.

"Aah!" Jon yelped, recoiling from the boy, who had to stand on tiptoes in order to be eye level with him.

"I've been trying to get in contact with you for ten seconds now." Damian said, in an annoyed voice. "The bell has stopped ringing, we'll be late for class."

"Oh. OH!" Jon's eyes widened as he realized where, and who he was, having briefly forgotten after meeting the girl. "Right. Uhh, let's go!"

He started going towards the corner the girl had left behind, but was stopped when a force grabbed him by his shirt collar. He turned to see Damian holding onto him, as he pointed a thumb in the opposite direction.

"Our first class is that way. Math."

Jon blinked. His thoughts were all over the place, he couldn't concentrate on anything.

"Oh, uh, right."

Damian rolled his eyes, and started walking, with Jon following behind him. He turned his head slightly to once again look to the corner.

"You're way too easily persuaded, you know that?"

Jon was pulled from his thoughts at this statement from Damian, and looked to the shorter boy again.

"Wh-what do you mean?" He asked.

"A girl comes over, starts rambling about a club, and you're immediately indoctrinated into it." Damian said. "And you just had to drag me into it as well."

"Hey, it sounded like fun!" Jon protested.

"Fun? She didn't even say what it was about! For all we know, it could be the dance club!" Damian said, exasperated.

"Dancing could be interesting..." Jon said softly, a vision drifting into his mind of the girl and him in an open room, slowly spinning around as colourful neon lights from a disco ball above them spun gently, him looking into her sapphire eyes and vice versa as they moved to the rhythm of a catchy song.

He shook his head to clear the embarrasing thought from his mind.

"I-I'm sure it'll be fine, whatever it is." He said, trying to sound confident. "She seemed very sincere about it."

"Ah yes, the girl you haven't even known for more than a minute, and yet you can't stop glancing to the spot where you last saw her." Damian said, turning his head, catching another one of Jon's sideways glances to the corner.

Jon blushed, and told himself to keep his eyes straight ahead of him.

"She just seemed really nice, is all. You didn't like her?" Jon asked.

"I really don't have an opinion on someone I've hardly even known for a minute. She seemed... ditzy." Damian said, shrugging.

"That's hardly fair." Jon said, offended at her behalf. "She was obviously confused, slipping on the floor like that."

"Right, and then you used your powers to save her. Very noble. Did I miss something here? I thought we were going to attend this school as Jon Kent and Damian Wayne, not Robin and Superboy. Should I change to a more appropiate uniform?"

Jon sighed.

"I couldn't just let her fall."

"She would have been fine, just a bit bruised. She would maybe even have learned from the experience, and think twice before running like an idiot without paying attention to her surroundings in the future. Really, you did her a disservice by 'saving' her." Damian said.

"Look, can you drop it?" Jon asked, feeling very irritated at Damian for calling her an idiot. He'd been friends with the boy for a while now, and though he knew Damian was a good person who did care deep down below the rough front he put on, his sarcastic remarks and barely hidden insults did start to grate on someone after a while. "It's all well and good that you can ignore people in need of help. But when you've got powers like I do, it comes with a certain responsibility to help my friends."

Damian turned around, glaring at Jon.

"Oh forgive me!" He said, in a voice dripping with sarcasm. "I didn't realize how close you two were with your friendship and all. Tell me, what's her name?"

Damian waited, looking expectantly at Jon, who was caught off guard by the question. He racked his brain trying to think back to everything the girl had said to him, but soon realized that he hadn't even asked for her name. And she hadn't asked for his.

"Well?" Damian asked, a smirk creeping along his face, as he raised an eyebrow.

Jon groaned.

"You're insufferable." He said, pushing him a bit to the side as he walked ahead. "Let's just get to class."

"We are." Damian said, and Jon turned to look at him, pointing behind him at the door they'd stopped by. A small sign on it read "MATH."

Grumbling to himself, Jon began slowly walking back, ignoring the smug look on his friend's face as he took hold of the doorknob, and prepared himself to be chastised by the teacher for being late to their first class.

* * *

"Come on, let's go!" Jon said excitedly as soon as the bell rang for the final time, signaling the end of classes for the day.

Damian was still taking hold of his school supplies and books, stacking them neatly inside his backpack, whereas Jon had simply hurriedly grabbed everything at his desk, and pushed it down his bag, causing it to look lumpy in weird places.

"Go? Go where? Hey!" Damian exclaimed, as Jon took hold of his wrist and started pulling him along, the boy only just managing to grab hold of the handle on his backpack before he was dragged out of the English classroom they'd spent the last hour in.

"To the club, dummy!" Jon said, a wide smile on his face. It had been hard to concentrate in the classes, the teachers not exactly helping by speaking in monotone, bleary voices expecting everyone to take notes on everything they said, with Jon just barely managing to stay awake throughout most of it. It had been so boring, with the only light at the end of the tunnel being the prospect of seeing the girl again at the club.

"Let go of me!" Damian said harshly, plunging his foot onto the floor, refusing to move further.

Jon smirked.

"You know I can, and will carry you if I must, right?"

"You'll do no such thing!" Damian said, angrily. "I never agreed to go along with you to that thing. The only reason I'm even at this asinine excuse for a school, is because Father demanded it, and I don't intend to stay for longer than I absolutely have to. You can go waste your free time with your girlfriend if you want, but I'm going home. I have a training schedule with my name on it, and after that I have to go on patrol."

"She's _not_ my girlfriend!" Jon said, frowning at Damian. "And come on. The whole reason you're here is to get better at socializing. What better way to get friends than joining a club?"

Damian looked at Jon, unimpressed.

"Not interested."

"Come on!" Jon pleaded, but Damian turned to leave.

"It'll be more fun with you there!" Jon said, trying desperately to think of something that could convince his friend to stay.

"Not fun for me." Damian shrugged him off, and made his way to the staircase, leading down to the hallway.

Jon thought back to what the girl had said about the club, then got an idea.

"She said there'd be cupcakes."

Damian stopped at the first step, and Jon didn't even need to listen with superhearing to notice the growl that came from Damian's stomach at the mention of the pastries.

Jon smiled.

"I know you haven't eaten anything all day, since you wouldn't touch the, and I quote, 'sludge and waste-water' in the cafeteria at lunch time."

Damian turned around, looking at Jon with a frown.

"At least just come along and have a cupcake, before you decide you won't join." Jon said, smiling gently.

Damian sighed.

"Fine. But I reserve the right to bail if I'm unimpressed by the quality of the baked goods." Damian said, and walked back towards Jon again.

"Yay!" Jon exclaimed, jumping in glee, moving to give Damian a hug.

"Don't you d-" Damian tried to escape, but Jon had already thrown his arms around him, grabbing a tight hold of him.

"Sixteen ways, Jon. No kryptonite." He mumbled.

"Oh shush." Jon said unconcernedly, and released Damian from his grip. "Now let's go!"

He had to keep himself from running towards the staircase going upwards, not wanting to make it any more obvious how excited he was to attend the club. He wasn't a kid anymore, and would act accordingly. Maybe.

All these stairs were really a pain to climb, though. He resisted the urge to just throw caution to the wind and float past them. Once you'd tried flying, it was hard to accept walking, especially on something that only served to get you upwards, like stairs.

He didn't voice any of these thoughts out loud since Damian was walking right next to him, showing no signs of being bothered more than he usually was by the climb upwards. And he did it without even having the option of flying. He'd sound like such a baby, complaining about walking up staircases.

He decided instead to make an attempt at small talk.

"So, what did you think of classes?" He asked.

"Vaguely irritating and incredibly tedious." Damian said, swiftly.

"Yeah, same." Jon said, glad to see that they both shared the opinion of how boring it had been. "Honestly, didn't get half of what they were even sa-"

"I learned all of this at the age of three." Damian kept going, talking over Jon who silenced himself. "What a waste of my precious time."

Jon sighed. Figures, that even when they agreed on something, it had been for entirely different reasons.

They had finally reached the top of the staircase, and were looking down a long hallway, a few doors on their sides, with a lone door by the end.

"She said it was the furthest door from the stairs, so it must be down there." Jon said, pointing at the end door. Damian merely grunted in acknowledgment, and they moved forwards.

As they got to the door, Jon noticed a small white paper which had been plastered on top of the door with cello tape. Items like light blue hearts and flowers were drawn all over it by what looked to be crayons, with big blocky letters in the middle spelling out "CLUB."

"That's a tonesetter." Damian commented dryly, looking up at the impromptu sign.

Jon wasn't listening, looking apprehensively at the door. Now that they'd made it this far, he felt a creeping anxiety slithering up his spine. What if they didn't like him? Or Damian? What if he made a fool of himself, like not knowing anything about whatever subject the club was about? What if he disappointed the girl who'd invited them here?

_"I know it's a cliché thing to say, but just be yourself. They'll love you there."_

His mom's words echoed throughout his mind, and he took a deep breath, swallowing his insecurities.

_I can do this. Of course I can. I'm Superboy._

He grabbed hold of the doorknob.

"You ready?" He asked, as much to himself as Damian to his side.

"Let's just get this over with." Damian said, in a bored voice.

Jon opened the door.

It was a decently spacious classroom, empty desks filed in neat rows across the floor, casting shadows in the afternoon sunlight coming through the windows, but there wasn't much about it to differentiate from the other classrooms Jon and Damian had attended today. Certainly nothing to suggest there was a club meeting in progress, apart from the homemade sign on the door.

They stepped further inside, and Jon noticed that the room wasn't completely devoid of people.

Far down, by the end of the room in the corner, a girl was sitting at a desk, head bent low into a book. She didn't seem to have noticed them enter.

Her hair was long, going far beyond her shoulders, all the way down to the blue skirt she was wearing as part of her school uniform. And it was dark purple in colour.

The girl's eyes, which were a lighter shade of purple as well, were going back and forth as she read the book on the desk, the rest of her face completely expressionless. Then, after a few seconds of this, she lifted her hand slightly, and long, slender fingers took hold of a page, flipping it, making a light rustling sound of paper on paper, before she lowered her hand again, and resumed reading.

Jon looked around the room, seeing no evidence of anyone else here. He looked to Damian next, who merely shrugged.

Jon approached the girl, and cleared his throat to announce his presence to her.

She blinked, and looked up at him with wide purple eyes, a startled expression on her face.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Didn't mean to surprise you." Jon said, apologetically.

"It's... it's fine." The girl said timidly, rising from her chair, blushing slightly. Jon noted that she was taller than he'd thought, a good head above himself. He also noticed to some embarrassment that he was in direct eye-level with her chest now, which was also alot bigger than he'd expected. Pushing those thoughts out of his mind as quick as he could, he looked up at her face instead.

"I- I sometimes get c-carried away when I r-read, not paying attention to the world around me. Uh..."

She blushed deeper upon noticing Damian by the doorway, and fidgeted a bit with a lock of her hair, pulling it slightly in front of her face, as if to hide away. The lock had a light purple hairpin collecting it as its own thing, apart from the rest of her hair.

"How- how long have you been standing here?" She asked.

"Only just got here." Jon said, smiling up at her.

"I see. D- do you need to use this room? I can leave if you need it to yourself." She said, a hint of nervousness in her voice.

"Oh, no, no." Jon said, shaking his head. "Really, it's us who should leave, if anyone. It's very possible we've gotten the wrong room. We're sort of new here."

"Oh, I see now. Uh..." She took a deep breath as if bracing herself. "M-maybe I can help? I've been attending this school for two years, so I am quite familiar with it."

"That would be great! Although it's really more of a person we need to find than a room." Jon said.

"Oh?" The girl said, interest in her voice. "I- I don't really know alot of people here, but I'll see what I can do."

"Sounds great!" Superboy smiled. "We're looking for this girl with pinkish-blondish hair about this long." He rested the palms of his hands at the side of his neck to show what length he meant. "She wore a red bow on top of it?

"Oh, you mean Sayori." The tall girl said, immediately recognizing the girl he was talking about. "Wait, does that mean you're the new club members she was talking about?"

Before Jon could reply, footsteps from the hallway outside of the closed door to the classroom grabbed everyone's attention, and soon an unknown girlish voice could be heard.

"...really smells amazing, Natsuki. I can't wait to taste them!"

Another voice, more highpitched in tone.

"Thanks."

"You know, I've always wanted to learn how to bake, and you seem like you've really got the hang of it."

"You can find plenty of recipes and guides online."

"Ah, right, but I think maybe it'd be easier to learn straight from the pro. Maybe if I could come over one day after school, we could-"

"Monika, how many times do I have to say no? You've been trying to get me to invite you home at my place for a whole week now."

"I don't think I have-

"Look. I'm sorry, but I don't know you that well yet, and it's kinda weird how you keep bringing up these scenarios where you have to visit me."

A third voice could be heard now, one that Jon recognized, making his heart race.

"Natsuki, I don't think Monika was trying to upset you..."

"I'm not upset, I just think it's weird how-"

The door opened, and a trio of girls entered the classroom, the one in front being a girl a bit shorter than Jon, carrying a blank, metal tray full of cupcakes, each one with a different coloured frosting, shaped to resemble various animal heads, like a green frog, a brown horse, and a gray elephant, to name a few.

She herself was wearing the standard uniform, as everyone else in the room, with bubblegum-pink hair about the same length as the girl who'd invited them to the club, with red ribbons tied into it. A small tuft of hair stuck out from the rest, and a hairclip resembling an hourglass rested on her front bangs.

The wielder of the tray looked like she was the one who had spoken up before, but had stopped when she'd spotted the two boys in the classroom, her mouth curling into a slight frown. She squinted her eyes, which were as pink as her hair.

"Who the heck are you two?" She asked, in a suspicious tone to Jon and Damian.

"Uhh..." Jon said, mind racing to think of a response, caught off guard by the brusqueness of her question. He was spared however, when one of the girls gasped.

"Oh my god! You actually came!"

Jon turned his head towards the one who had spoke up, and a smile grew on his face as he saw the girl from before to the left of the shorter girl, rushing towards him, a wide smile on her own face, her sapphire eyes twinkling in joy.

"Of course we did. We said we would, didn't we?" Jon replied, feeling his face grow hot.

_Don't get flustered. They're just girls. All of them._

_...wow, they're all girls._

"Seriously, Sayori? You invited _boys?"_ The pink-haired girl carrying the tray of cupcakes spoke up, in the same annoyed tone of voice she'd used when talking outside the room. "We had a good track record going before with just us girls, and then you go and invite _them?"_

"We'd be happy to leave, if you don't want us here." Damian said, and the pinkette snapped her head at him, furrowing her eyebrows, staring him down.

"Noo!" The blue eyed girl Jon now knew was called Sayori, exclaimed. She had a troubled look on her face as she looked from the pinkhaired girl to Damian, who seemed to be staring eachother down.

"Now, now. I'm sure Natsuki was just kidding, all are welcome here." The girl to the right of the girl who was apparently called Natsuki, said.

She was a bit taller than everyone else here, except for the girl with purple hair who'd originally been in the room, who still had a few inches on her. She had light brown hair, bangs covering her forehead with two long strands reaching down below her chest, and a big white bow at the back separating a long ponytail from the rest.

She stepped forward.

"Hi there! My name is Monika, and..."

She stopped mid sentence, staring down at Jon, who looked back at her, confused.

Monika's bright green eyes seemed to dart all around him, looking like they couldn't believe what they were seeing. Her smile vanished, as she now bore a look of utter confusion.

Jon felt slightly uncomfortable having the taller girl stare at him like that. If he didn't know any better, he'd almost say she was using X-ray vision on him.

"Monika? You okay?" Sayori asked, placing a hand on her shoulder, a concerned look in her eyes.

"What?" Monika muttered, turning her head to look at Sayori, eyes finally leaving Jon.

"You kinda just... froze." Natsuki said, and walked over to one of the desks to place down her tray of cupcakes.

"I did?" Monika asked. She blushed, and an embarrased smile rose on her face. "Sorry about that. I must have... gotten lost in thought."

"Happens to the best of us." Jon said and smiled, trying to diffuse the awkwardness of the situation.

"Some more than others." Damian added snidely, walking over to join the rest of the group.

"Let's start over." Monika said, extending an open hand to Jon. "I'm Monika, the President of this Club. Pleasure to meet you."

Jon took her hand, and shook it. She had a very firm grip.

"The girl over there trying to steal the cupcakes meant to be _shared-"_ Monika said, putting emphasis on the last word as she pointed towards the red-bowed girl who'd stalked off to stealthily take a cupcake with white frosting, shaped like a cow. "-is Sayori, the ever-responsible Vice President."

Sayori blushed, and giggled lightly at being exposed like that.

"Put that down!" Natsuki piped up, rushing over to snatch the pastry out of Sayori's hands, putting it back on the tray with the others.

"And this little charming ball of cuteness-" Monika said, gesturing towards the pink-haired girl who turned to give an offended glare at Monika, hearing her words. "-Is Natsuki, the best baker in the whole school."

"Call me cute again. See what happens." Natsuki said sourly, but the comment about her baking skills seemed to have calmed her down enough.

"And last, but certainly not least, standing there quietly because she mistakenly thinks she's got nothing to contribute to the conversation-" Monika said, gesturing towards the tall, purplehaired girl, who blushed scarlet, and tried to move more of her hair in front of her face as everyone's attention turned to her.

"-Yuri!"

"H- hi." Yuri said, smiling nervously behind her hair.

"And now, who are these two lovely specimens you brought us, Sayori?" Monika asked, smiling teasingly at the two boys.

"Oh!" Sayori exclaimed smiling excitedly at being addressed. "Well, they're these two new boys who just started today and one of them saved my life when I slipped on a piece of wet floor, and then I invited them here."

She smiled brightly at Jon, who chuckled awkwardly, rubbing the back of his head.

"I dunno about saving your life exactly... Just did what anyone would do..."

"I see." Monika said, smiling warmly at Sayori. "But what are their names?"

"Uhh..." Sayori said, looking dumbfounded, caught off guard.

"You didn't ask for their names?" Natsuki asked, disbelievingly staring at the Vice President.

"The bell rang, and so I kinda just forgot, y'know?" Sayori said, giggling.

Monika sighed slightly, turning her head back to Jon.

"Well, I suppose you'll have to introduce yourselves to us." Monika said, smiling encouragingly at Jon.

"For sure!" Jon said, smiling back. "I'm Jon, I just started here, and this is my friend, Gar-"

But Damian was faster, slapping a hand in front of Jon's mouth, blocking his talking.

"It's Damian." He said, giving Jon a sidelong glare, removing his hand again.

"Well Jon, Damian, it's a pleasure to meet you both, and I hope you'll enjoy your time here, both at this school, and the Club."

"Let's not be hasty." Damian said, crossing his arms and looking unimpressed at Monika. "I never agreed to join this Club. I only came today because I heard you were giving out food."

Monika's smile disappeared.

"Oh."

"Jon convinced me despite my better judgment to give this place a chance, and see if you had anything to offer me, instead of just wasting my time." He continued, glancing around the room. "And so far, I can't say I'm impressed."

Monika raised an eyebrow.

"Well, thank you regardless for coming along today. The choice is ultimately yours, but I hope we can convince you to join by the end of this meetup. I, personally think this Club offers plenty of opportunities to expand our horizons, and meet new people in the progress." She said, diplomatically.

"I wouldn't hold my breath." Damian responded.

Jon could have hit Damian. He just had to do this, didn't he? Completely unable to give this place the benefit of the doubt and put on a positive attitude.

He really hoped the members here wouldn't judge him based on Damian's behaviour.

"Oh wow." Natsuki said, smirking slightly. "And you guys thought _I_ was acting bitchy. This guy's taking it to a whole other level."

Damian glared at the girl, an irritated look on his face.

"You have something you wish to say to me?"

"Oh, I could never." She said lightly, but the wish for confrontation was strong in her voice. "After all, what could a simple girl like me possibly have to offer that wouldn't be a waste of the mighty Damian's time?"

Damian narrowed his eyes at her, giving her his best death glare. She didn't even raise an eyebrow, meeting his gaze in kind, not showing any signs of fear.

"L-let's not fight!" Sayori cut in, smiling nervously as she tried to diffuse the situation. "N-Natsuki, no one was thinking that either you or Damian's bitchy"

"Sure as hell could have fooled me." Natsuki retorted, still staring into Damian's eyes. She was just a slight bit shorter than him, but she carried herself with such a presence that it was hardly even noticed. "At least I didn't join this club immediately bragging about how better I am than anyone else."

Damian opened his mouth, no doubt to deliver a scathing retort, but was interrupted.

"Uhm." Yuri spoke up, and blushed as everyone looked her way again.

"So. Uhm. W-what do you guys like to read?"

"Read?" Jon asked, thankful that someone had changed the topic from the showdown between Damian and Natsuki, and hurrying to keep the momentum going.

"Uh, yeah. I mean." Yuri continued, clearly uncomfortable with everyone's attention on her again. "I-if you're going to j-join, it would be n-nice to have an idea of the reading material you enjoy."

"Why?" Damian asked, crossing his arms. "What does reading have to do with your club?"

"Oh. Uh. Well. Uhm..." Yuri said, clearly not expecting this reply, and struggled to come up with a response.

"What do you mean, 'what does reading have to do with your club?'" Natsuki asked, making her voice unflatteringly deep as she mimicked Damian. "Do you _not_ know what this club is even about?"

"As a matter of fact, no." Damian shot back, annoyed. "Your so-called Vice President never bothered to tell us."

Everyone's heads turned to Sayori, who once again blushed, and giggled at the attention. She did the thing she'd done in the hallway again, touching the tips of her index fingers together.

"Sayori..." Monika said, in a lightly exasperated voice.

"Look, the bell rung, okay?" Sayori said quickly. "There wasn't time to tell them!"

"What nonsense!" Natsuki said, but she was smiling, seemingly enjoying the current chaos of the situation. "You literally only had to say one word, the name of the Club. I think you would actually have a tougher time _not_ saying what the club was about! Like you were avoiding the word on purpose!"

"Nuh-uh!" Sayori exclaimed, widening her eyes which darted back and forth looking like she was struggling to think of a counter-argument. "It just... it never came up!"

"Oh wow." Natsuki said, starting to laugh. "So you just approach two students, don't ask for their names, and just invite them to join a club that you didn't even say what was about?"

She giggled.

"I can't tell who's dumber in this scenario, you, or them for coming anyway!"

"That's quite enough, Natsuki." Monika said, laying a hand on the short girl's shoulder, not a threatening gesture, but a clear indicator to stop with the insults.

"Wait, is that the reason the sign outside just said 'CLUB?'" Natsuki went on, ignoring Monika. "As an attempt to further hide its identity?"

"N-no!" Sayori said, looking increasingly disstressed at Natsuki's attack. "The... the paper just didn't have room for the full name!"

"Natsuki." Monika said, a bit more sternly.

"Sure, I'll stop now." Natsuki said, still chuckling to herself.

"My apologies to you, Jon and Damian." Monika said, frowning slightly. "I'm sure it was never Sayori's intention to lead you here under false pretenses. Truth is, we've been having trouble gathering up new members, as they tend to lose interest once we bring up the name. But that's no reason to avoid telling you alltogether, in the hopes that you'll join before you have a chance to consider."

Jon looked over at Sayori who was smiling sadly at him.

"Sorry." She said.

"It's... it's fine." He said, keeping his smile up. "I'm sure I'll like it, whatever it is. I like most things. So what is this Club about, anyway?"

"It's a Literature Club." Monika replied.

Jon's smile vanished.

"Literature? As in, books?"

"Here we go." Natsuki said, an excited tone in her voice.

"Books, novels, poems, you name it. Basically anything with written words." Monika said.

"Like manga!" Natsuki added helpfully.

Yuri gave a light sigh, closing her eyes.

"Yes, Natsuki. Manga too." Monika replied, in a tired voice.

"Although if that's your preferred material, the Anime Club might be better suited for you." Yuri said, a hint of bitterness in her tone.

"Oh, this again. You wanna go for another round, edgelord?" Natsuki exclaimed, looking over angrily at the taller girl.

"No, let's not do that. Please." Monika said, in a voice that told everyone they'd gone down this path numerous times.

A Literature Club.

Jon had stopped listening to the bickering of the girls, and considered the information he'd just been given, frowning as he thought. Based on Sayori's statements about how fun the club was, and her overhype for it, he had thought it would be something more exciting, like Gym, or Games. Something he would actually be good at.

Of course he could read, and had even enjoyed a select few books in his life, but it wasn't something he considered as a fun hobby. Reading meant sitting still and concentrating, trying to keep track of a mental picture in your mind. You couldn't do things like chatting with your friends while reading, or move around, stretching your legs. Flying in the air while doing it was a bad idea, as it was a good way to lose track of your surroundings and find yourself on the inside of plane's jet turbine.

No matter how you looked at it, reading was just... boring.

He glanced over at Damian, standing next to him, to gage his reaction to the reveal. Damian turned his head as well, meeting Jon's eyes.

And to Jon's surprise, a vampyric grin stretched along Damian's pale face.

_Oh no. That's never a good sign._

Damian cleared his throat, and put a stop to the increasingly heated argument that had erupted between Yuri and Natsuki about whether or not manga was really Literature, with Sayori trying in vain to get them to stop arguing, and Monika pinching the bridge of her nose, looking like she was about to just give up and go home for the day.

The girls looked up at Damian, who was still smiling unsettlingly.

"Well, I had my doubts, but you managed to change my mind. Me and Jon would _love_ to join your Club."

Looks of surprise littered the faces of the girls, as they stared at Damian after hearing this uncharacteristic declaration.

Damian turned his head to make eye contact with Jon again, a smug expression on his face, as he gave a wink.

Jon then realized what he was doing.

Damian had seen his less than cheerful reaction to being told the Club was about reading books, and correctly deduced that it was one of the last things he wanted to do. Only way for the Club to be more frightening to him was if it was about math, instead. And now, he was using that knowledge to force Jon into joining, by joining it himself. Now the other girls would expect him to join, since the skeptic had been "convinced."

Damian didn't care about the Club, probably didn't even want to join it himself. All he was doing right now was punishing Jon, maybe as some sort of revenge to dragging him here in the first place.

He was fully prepared to go down himself if it meant taking Jon with him.

_That weasel._

"Really? You'll join? You too, Jon?"

Sayori's voice shook him out of his enraged thoughts about Damian's scheme.

He looked up, meeting the gaze of Sayori, her wide, blue eyes almost sparkling with hope as she looked at him with bated breath, awaiting his response.

The other girls were looking at him as well. Monika had the same strange look in her eyes as before, as if she was part of a whole other conversation, and was looking at him as if she just couldn't understand him. Natsuki had her arms crossed, looking with an inspecting glare, a slight frown on her face. Yuri was looking over at Damian, an odd smile on her face, which Jon couldn't interpret. She noticed him looking, and quickly turned her head to stare at the ground instead, a blush spreading across her face.

And still, Sayori looked at him with those big, hopeful eyes.

How could he ever say no to her?

"Y-yeah." He managed, a goofy grin stretching over his lips. "Of course I'll join!"

"YES!" Sayori yelled, and without warning, she ran as fast as she could over to Jon who could barely react as she threw her arms around him and squeezed tightly. Jon shuddered to imagine the choked state he'd be in if not for his super-durability.

"Thank you so much!" Sayori said, as she hugged him. "I promise you won't regret it. We're gonna have so much fun!"

"L-looking forward to it!" Jon said, a bit overwhelmed at her affectionate display, his mind overloaded at being in such close proximity to a girl.

He breathed in, and caught the scent of flowers.

Turning his head as much as he could with Sayori holding on to him, he glanced at Damian who looked dissatisfied at having his plan backfire like this. Jon gave him a smile of his own, and Damian simply rolled his eyes in response.

"Sayori, let the poor boy breathe." Monika said, a smile on her face.

Sayori let go of Jon, still smiling brightly at him.

"I- I look forward to the future encounters we'll have together." Yuri said, giving Jon a shy smile of her own.

"Psh." Natsuki scoffed, crossing her arms, and looked away. "I guess there could be worse candidates."

Monika gave the two a final glance over, once again giving Jon the impression that she was attempting to X-Ray them. Finally, she stopped, and threw her arms out, as if presenting the room to them.

"Welcome, to the Literature Club!" She said, in what sounded like a practiced announcer's voice. "Hope you'll enjoy your stay!"

* * *

"Natsuki, these cupcakes are heavenly!" Monika said, in between mouthfuls of her orange-frosted pastry, shaped like a fox.

"Are you surprised? I baked them, after all." Natsuki said, smiling smugly, as she took a bite of her own cat shaped cupcake, the same colour as that of her hair.

"Sho ghood!" Sayori said, not even bothering to swallow her mouthful of the white-frosted cow she'd attempted to snatch earlier.

"They're... adequate." Damian said, having already eaten his first cupcake, a red-frosted bird, and was going for seconds.

"Wow, stop the presses! Vampire Kid just gave something that could be interpreted as a compliment! Is he sick?" Natsuki shot back.

Damian said nothing, scowling a bit as he started gulping down a new cupcake, this one a black bat.

After Jon and Damian had been formally enrolled in the club, Monika had called for an impromptu meeting, to discuss how they would be going forward with the Club, now that they finally had enough members to make it official.

They had assembled a few of the desks, making a wide group table of sorts, and decided that before they started talking, they would have some of the cupcakes Natsuki brought, to not overwhelm the new members with too much club talk.

Jon had taken a bite of his own cupcake, a brown dog, and had to close his eyes to properly savour the sweetness of the treat. He loved his mom, but even her baking didn't compare to this. Given how she burnt everything she put in the oven to a crisp.

Dad did most of the cooking in the house, coincidentally.

Yuri motioned forward to grab her own cupcake, a yellow one, shaped like an owl. However, Natsuki intercepted it before she could take it.

"Wh-what?" Yuri asked.

"I actually made your cupcakes separate from the others, Yuri." Natsuki said, her face expressionless. She motioned to take hold of her backpack below her chair, grabbing hold of a decently sized plastic container. She popped off the lid, and retrieved a pastry from inside.

"Here you go." She said, handing over the cupcake to a hesitant Yuri. "I thought this would be a more appropiate animal to one with your... assets."

Yuri took the pastry from her, holding it up so she could see. Her eyes widened, and a now familiar blush spread across her face as she took in the appearance of the cupcake: a blue whale, with purple frosting resembling her own hair going down its head.

"Very funny." Yuri said tersely, placing the pastry on the table, and taking the owl instead.

"Wait wait!" Natsuki said, cackling madly as she reached into the container again. "I think I got a giraffe in here, too!"

"Okay everyone!" Monika announced hastily, before another conflict between the two girls could arise.

Jon, and everyone else turned their attention to the President, listening closely.

"Now that we're all gathered and have indulged in the pleasures of Natsuki's baking, it's time to discuss where we want this Club to go, moving forward, and what activities we should be doing. We've been playing it kinda loose this past week, where we weren't sure if we were going to be able to continue, but now that we've got the two new members, we need to set up some form of game plan." Monika continued, sounding like she'd practiced this speech before.

"So," She said. "Any suggestions?"

"Why don't we just keep reading, like we've done all of last week?" Natsuki asked, her smile from bullying Yuri having been replaced with a frown. "It seemed to work out fine, and it's kinda what literature is all about."

"For once I agree with Natsuki." Yuri said, putting down her half-eaten owl. "Reading was... really nice."

Monika smiled gently at them.

"Trust me, I get that. I love reading too. But it might not be the most social of activities, and it kind of defeats the purpose of having a club if we just do things we could just as well do at home."

Natsuki looked uncomfortable at that, glancing downwards.

"We need something that we can do together, as a group." Monika said. "Something everyone can participate in, no matter how new they are."

She glanced over at Jon and Damian.

"Oh, and it should preferably have at least something to do with literature." She finished.

Silence lingered in the classroom, as everybody was thinking about what they could suggest.

Jon was stumped. He barely read anything at all, apart from homework he was assigned, and the few comic books he sometimes paged through when he didn't have anything else to do. He had no idea how to make reading fun, or collaborative.

He looked to his left, to see if Damian had any idea.

The shorter boy had a frown on his face, but not, he could tell, from stuggling to think of an activity they could do together. It was just the normal, standard bored look he always wore. Jon knew that the chance of him suggesting anything, was very slim.

He hoped someone else could think of something, because the longer they sat here waiting, the more he felt like the dumbest person in the room.

"Nobody?" Monika asked to the room, breaking the silence.

"Oh! I think I got it!" Everyone turned their head to Sayori who had an excited look on her face, her arm raised into the air, wobbling slightly.

Monika smiled.

"Yes, Vice President?"

Sayori giggled at being addressed by her formal title.

"Well, I was just thinking that we usually read the books and manga we like for ourselves, and that's all well and good, but what if we shared each other's stuff and had each other read the other's stuff? And then maybe give feedback on it?"

"So what," Natsuki said, furrowing her brows as she tried to understand Sayori's suggestion. "We write our own material, and have each other read them?"

Sayori's eyes widened.

"Oh my god! I was thinking we just shared the books we liked, but that's so much better! You're a genius, Natsuki!"

"Well. Obviously." Natsuki said, a shrewd smile on her face as she accepted the compliment.

"Wait." Jon spoke out, a slight panic in his voice. "We're supposed to be writing now?"

Reading had been bad enough, but this?

"Well, yeah!" Sayori said, still smiling. "I know Yuri has some killer poems she's written herself. Literally! There are actual killers in them!"

Yuri blushed, and tried to hide her face.

"Sayori... I told you that in confidence..." She said, in a voice more resembling a groan.

"You did? Wow, that's awesome! It's good to be confident in your work!" Sayori said, oblivious.

Natsuki laughed.

"That is so not what that phrase means, you dummy!"

"Huh?" Sayori said, unsure.

Monika cleared her throat to set a stop to the smalltalk.

"I actually really like this idea, Sayori." She said. "One of the best ways to get to know a person better, is by looking at their work, and seeing what interests them. This could be a great way to get closer to each other, and to get feedback on our stuff, so we can work on improving it."

"I- I'm not sure if I can do this." Yuri said, a scared expression on her face. "My poems are... a bit unusual. Y-you might think less of me, reading them."

Monika gave the tall girl a gentle smile.

"I know sharing your work can be scary, Yuri. Opening yourself up to the world like that, not knowing what it might say back, can be stressful. Criticism can be crippling. But if you never share your work, you'll never get any praise for it either. And trust me, if you get just one person who tells you they like what you've written, it will make everything else completely worth it."

Yuri looked up at Monika, her purple eyes wide.

"R-really?"

"Know this, Yuri." Monika responded. "Everyone in here is your friend, and we all love you. Nothing you write could ever make us think less of you. Right, guys?"

"Of course!" Sayori said, flashing Yuri a wide smile.

"Yeah." Natsuki said. "I know I jank your chain alot, Yuri, but you know it's just goofs."

Jon spoke up next.

"I haven't had the chance to get to know any of you that well yet, but you all seem really cool."

Damian gave an affirmative grunt.

"T-thank you, everyone." Yuri said, her blush deepening as a smile grew on her face. She lowered her face a bit, to hide away.

"So are we doing this?" Sayori asked.

"Well, let's give it a try." Monika said. "If everyone could go home today and write a poem, we'll share them with eachother for tomorrow. What do you guys say?"

"Sure!" Sayori said, brightly.

"Oh yeah." Natsuki said confidently. "Time to show you mooks what a real poem looks like."

"I... I think I can manage that." Yuri said, still keeping her head down.

"I suppose I can fit it into my schedule." Damian said, checking his watch.

"Uh..."

Jon hestitated. Everyone's eyes was on him now, and he started feeling some of the anxiety Yuri must have felt earlier in the day.

"I- I really don't know much about literature. Or writing. I..." He paused, looking down at his lap. "You guys seem to really know about this stuff, and I'm worried this poem I'm going to be writing will look like child scribbles in comparison."

"Everyone has to start somewhere, Jon." Monika said, kindly. "If you don't take the leap, you'll never improve. I recently took up playing piano as a pass time, and I was awful at it at first. Whenever I'd try to play it, it would sound like a cat was running over the keys at random. But I didn't let that stop me. Skill takes time, practice and positive reinforcements from friends, and you're lucky to be in a Club full of that last part."

Jon looked up, into Monika's eyes, a warm feeling spreading through his body. Her words made a lot of sense.

"I didn't know you played piano, Monika!" Sayori exclaimed, in awe.

"Well, maybe you'll hear me play soon enough." Monika said, smiling. "Seriously Jon, you don't have to be afraid of your work not measuring up to ours. Just do your best, and nobody here will think any lesser of you."

"T-thanks, Monika."

Jon thought over her words. She was right. He shouldn't be so worried over what they might think of him. He had spent so much time with Damian, keeping up this constant game of one-upping each other, he'd almost forgotten that normal people didn't do that.

"Heh." Monika said, closing her eyes, and looked satisfied with herself. "I guess that was my writing tip for the day."

Natsuki let out a groan, and facepalmed.

"You just had to bring that back again, didn't you? I hoped, no, _prayed_ you had forgotten that over the weekend."

Natsuki looked to Jon, explaining.

"She did it all throughout last week, too. Giving us some vague, chinese fortune cookie tier advice, and called it her "writing tip of the day." Half the time, they weren't even related to anything!"

"You'll never escape my writing tips! They'll haunt you forever!" Monika said, in an overly dramatic voice, raising her eyes to the ceiling, and twirled an imaginary moustache. "Mua-haha!"

"Please, just spare us." Natsuki said, exasperated.

"Are we done here?" Damian asked, an impatient tone in his voice, looking vaguely annoyed at the girls' shenanigans. Monika frowned.

"Well, unless someone has anything else they want to add...?" She said, ending the sentence as an open ended question to the room at large.

"Um." Yuri spoke up, raising her head. It seemed like it took a lot out of her every time she did that. "Sorry. Um. You never did say what kind of books you read. Uhm, if you don't want to say, then that's fine too."

"Well, there's not much to tell, for me at least." Jon said, smiling apologetically. "I read the Harry Potter books awhile ago, but beyond that, it's mainly just comic books."

"Ah." Yuri said, smiling vaguely overbearingly at hearing this. "I see."

"What kind of comic books?" Natsuki asked, without a hint of her usual sarcasm in her voice.

"Uhm, just whatever I see laying around." Jon said. "Spider-Man, Captain America. Iron Man. Sorry if that sounds really basic."

"Nice." Natsuki said, seemingly genuinely interested. "That's awesome, dude. I mainly read manga, since I feel like those stories are better for long-form storytelling, and they aren't so dependant on the status quo as western stuff, but I can definitely see the appeal of reading about people in tights punching bad guys. Don't let anyone tell you that comic books aren't proper books."

"I- I won't." Jon said, smiling. He was surprised by the sincerity in her voice.

"What about you, Damian?" Yuri asked.

"I read whenever I'm not busy with something else." Damian said, and Jon noted the slightly bragging tone that seemed to enter his voice whenever he mentioned the things he did better than anyone else. "I make it a goal to get through at least one book every week."

"That's... really commendable." Yuri said, looking impressed. "So, uh, what books have you read?"

"Just the ones I find interesting." He said, shrugging. "1984. Catcher in the Rye. The Great Gatsby. Stuff like that. I started reading Portrait of Markov today."

"Really?!" Yuri said, startling most of them by speaking in an increased volume, her stuttering gone, staring at Damian as though looking at him through new eyes. "I'm reading that book too! How far are you in it? Have you read past the first death? What do you think of the characters? Did you reach the twist yet? What do you think of... of..."

She seemed to realize everyone was staring at her, with even more estranged looks than usual, Damian simply looking at her with an eyebrow raised at her outburst. Her excited demeanor seemed to deflate on the spot, and she seemed to shrink back into her chair, which was an impressive feat for someone of her height.

"I'm... sorry. I was rambling. Ignore me." She spoke in a low voice, staring intensely at her own feet.

"Great, we've got another edgy bookworm in our group. Definitely needed more of those." Natsuki lamented.

"Well, considering this _is_ a Literature Club, it's certainly the right place for them to be." Monika said.

"Okay, everyone!" She announced. "I think for a first meeting, that went better than expected! But it's getting late, and you don't wanna head home in this city when the sun sets, so how about we call it a day?"

Jon and Damian got out of their chairs, and headed for the exit, Jon briefly waving goodbye to the others.

"Well, that went much better than I expected." Jon said.

"Whatever." Damian said, glancing behind them, then sighing.

"Heads up. The one who got us into this mess is approaching."

"Who, Sayori?" Jon turned, and blushed as he was met with the face of the smiling blue eyed girl, right in front of his own.

"Hey guys." She said, slightly out of breath. She must have rushed over to meet them before they exited the room.

"Hi?" Jon said, unsure of what was appropiate to say to a girl who was this close to him.

"I, uh. I just wanted to say thanks. To both of you. I know that wasn't the best sales pitch I gave this morning, and maybe I kinda skimmed over some essential details..."

Damian made a _"-TT-"_ noise.

"...but it really means a lot that you accepted anyway. Monika was very worried that we wouldn't have enough members to make this Club official. She worked really hard to get it up and running, and I know she's so grateful that we managed to do it." She said, smiling at them. "So again, thank you so much."

"It's... it's no trouble." Jon said, smiling back. "The Club sounds fun. I just hope I can keep up with you all."

"I have to go now." Damian said, turning around to exit the room. Jon got the impression that he was getting tired of the back and forth he had with Sayori.

"Oh, for sure! Have a nice day, see you tomorrow Damian!" Sayori called out happily after him, only getting a non-verbal grunt in response.

"You'll have to excuse him." Jon said, apologetically. "He's not exactly what you'd call a people person."

"Oh that's fine. I hope he'll end up liking this place." Sayori said.

"I think he does, he just doesn't want to admit it. If Natsuki keeps baking cupcakes, he'll definitely come around."

They both laughed at that.

"Excuse me, Monika? Could you spare an aspirin?"

Sayori looked behind her, and Jon turned to see Monika hand over a white pill to Yuri, who swallowed it at once.

"Oh!" Sayori exclaimed, raising a hand. "Can I have one too?"

Monika gave a thumbs up, and started rummaging in her purse.

"Something wrong?" Jon asked, out of curiosity.

"Oh, nothing's wrong. Quite the contrary." Sayori looked back at him, smiling. "I'm feeling better than I've felt in a long time, actually. Just been feeling a bit of an headache lately, but it's not too bad."

Her smile lessened, and she looked at him with a more serious expression.

"Don't worry so much about not being the most avid reader here." She said. "To be perfectly honest, I'm not that good at it either."

"You're not?" Jon asked, surprised. He would have thought she was, her being the Vice President and all.

"Not really. I... don't really have the best grades, in paper stuff. I'm much better at Gym, or practical assignments."

"I can definitely relate." Jon said, sighing.

Sayori smiled again.

"How about we help each other get better at this literature thing?" She asked.

"Sure. How would we go about doing that though?" Jon asked.

"Well, we usually start off Club meetings by reading individually." Sayori said, blushing. "Maybe we could... read together?"

She looked down, not making eye contact as she awaited his reply.

Jon blushed himself, as the thought of her and him, sitting together at a table, reading the same book flashed before his mind. They'd have to sit really close for that to work.

"S-sure." He said, nervously. "I'd like that."

She looked up at him again, face beaming.

"Awesome! I'll see you tomorrow then!"

She turned to walk off.

Just then, an idea flashed in Jon's mind, and he acted without thinking

"Sayori!" He called out, then hesitated. Could he really ask for this, so soon?

She turned around again, looking at him inquiringly.

"Yes, Jon?"

"Uhm. Uh, I- I think I have another idea on how to uh, improve our reading."

Her eyes widened.

"Really? How?"

He pulled out his phone from his pocket.

"I-if we g-get eachother's ph-phone numbers, we can, uh, text eachother. And. Then read. The uh, texts."

_Smooth._

He cursed himself. There were about a hundred different ways to formulate that sentence in a way that wouldn't have been cringe inducing, and he'd failed every single one of them.

But to his surprise, she didn't seem to be holding back laughter at how pitiful his excuse for getting her phone number had been, instead smiling widely, as if she were impressed.

"Jon, that's genius!" She said, not a hint of sarcasm in her voice as she pulled out her own phone, which had a pink cover with cat ears at the top.

After awkwardly exchanging contact info, Jon had filed her as "Sayori" under his contacts list.

"Well, I'll be uh, speaking to you soon enough!" Jon said, exiting the room, keen to hide his scarlet face.

"Yeah, totally. Bye Jon!" She called back, turning around to grab her things and get the pill from Monika.

Jon rushed down the stairs to the entrance hall of the school, resisting the urge to just open a window and fly up, up and away. It looked like most of the students had already deserted the school, but he still made sure to look around him extra carefully as he exited the building, and jumped behind the closest bush he could find.

Glancing around again, he leapt several feet into the air, before taking off with his flight.

Once he was high enough above the clouds, out of earshot from anyone else, he let out an excited yell at the top of his lungs.

_I got her phone number!_

* * *

The sun was setting as Jon floated downwards, stopping in front of the window on the 25th floor. A good thing about living so high up was that no one would notice and wonder about the odd fingerprint scanner installed into the windowframe.

Jon placed the flat of his thumb on the scanner, and a robotic voice could be heard in the faint twilight breeze.

_"Recognized. Jon Kent. Superboy. Welcome home."_

The window opened up for him, and he floated inside, landing gently on the kitchen floor.

Once again, he _could_ have entered the building via the door from below and walked up the stairs, but once again, why _would_ he?

Lois Lane was sitting in the exact same position as she had this morning, tapping away at her computer while sitting at the dinner table. The only proof of her having moved at all being the previously messy dark hair having been combed and smoothed out, her lips being painted in her trademark purple lipstick that matched her eyes, and the more flattering work clothes she was wearing now, although her usual purple blazer was hanging slung over the back of her chair, leaving her in a white t-shirt.

She raised her gaze from the pale light of her laptop, blinking as she saw him close and lock the window behind him.

The sun's light had all but left the skies, leaving the kitchen in dark shadows.

"Goodness. Is it evening already?" She asked, checking her watch. "Didn't even notice. Hey Jon, how was school? I called the Chinese place, and I think he left the food outside our door. I heard a knock, but I was in the middle of writing something very important, so I didn't open."

Jon nodded, giving her a thumbs up as he moved to the door by the far left of their kitchen, opened it, and picked up the two take-out boxes left on the floor, bringing them inside, and placing them in front of her laptop at the table.

Lois tapped a few final buttons on her keyboard, ending with a triumphant hard push at the Enter button.

"Take _that,_ deadline!" She said, and collapsed the screen into the keyboard.

She slid the laptop away to the side of her, and hungrily grabbed hold of the box Jon was handing her.

"Thank you sweetie. So tell me, how was the first day of school? Was Damian decent for once?" She opened the box, sniffing in the scent of the Peking Roasted Duck she'd ordered, eyes briefly rolling up in pleasure. They quickly returned to their usual spot, giving Jon a harsh look before he could even start to answer her other questions.

"Don't think I didn't notice the mess you left in your room. You are cleaning that up before playing any videogames, young man."

"Mom..." Jon started, looking at his own take-out box, probably containing dumplings.

"What's up, sport?" Lois said, already digging into her dinner.

"I... I really need some help." Jon said, thinking about the work awaiting him tonight.

"Well, you know your father is in space, solving some alien conflict." Lois said, struggling to use the chopsticks included in the box, before giving up, and headed into the kitchen to retrieve a fork. "He'll probably be home again by the end of the week. And although he did give us a communicator, we should probably only use it for emergencies."

"I- I don't need his help, actually." Jon said, making eye contact with his mom. "It's... a writing problem."

Lois' eyes lit up at hearing that.

"Writing problem, huh? Do tell."

"Well... I joined this club in school. And uh, I need to write a poem for tomorrow. And..."

He hestitated. She was going to be such a... _mom,_ after he told her this.

But he really needed her help, and this would make sure she put all of her effort into it.

"...and there might be a girl involved."

Her eyes widened, and seemed to sparkle as she put her take-out box to the side. Her mouth stretched into a smile even wider than before.

"All right, let's get to work."


	3. Friendly Critique

Damian was annoyed.

A lot of things annoyed him these days, most notably the weather. A common belief among those who only knew of Gotham from the videos of supervillain TV high-jackings and Batman sightings, was that Gotham only had two types of weather, rain and darkness. Which was stupid, since "darkness" wasn't even a weather condition, and yet people thought it was fitting since so many pictures of the city were taken at night time, an urban legend of sorts had emerged that the sun just never rose in here.

It was beyond dumb. Like a small child traveling to Mexico for the first time and being surprised the place wasn't just a big desert with a few cacti scattered around, because that's what cartoons had led them to believe.

It was completely insane to think that Gotham never saw sunlight. Idiotic, even.

And even though he fully knew how ridiculous it was, he found himself wishing that it was actually the case.

He hated the sun.

He hated how he couldn't stay out in it for longer than two minutes without his skin getting burned. He hated having to apply the stupid sunscreen, being hyper-aware of how sticky his neck and facial area would be all day, slathered in the disgusting chemicals. He hated how if he tried to cover himself up in clothes, the warmth would cause his body to sweat so much, he'd be as sticky as if he'd applied the sunscreen. And he hated how none of this seemed to bother Kent, who because of his half-kryptonian heritage was actually fueled by the rays, his biology absorbing the sun's radiation like a battery, converting it into raw power.

Really, he would prefer if it was raining. At least the hammering of raindrops would serve as a screen of white noise to distract him from the mindless chatter of the students he was unfortunate enough to share school with.

If he had to name one positive aspect of the sun, apart from the obvious "giving life to the whole planet" aspect, he supposed it gave him good opportunities to practice sticking to the shadows, and finding the most optimal routes to avoid detection.

It was a pretty lacklustre positive side, as he doubted avoiding the sun would serve to make him any better than he already was, but Damian wasn't known for his ability to look on the bright side of things.

Really, the sun wasn't that big a deal. It wasn't like it was the cause of any serious aggravations that hindered his existance in any meaningful ways. It was merely the cause of a thousand little irritations that piled up to make his life just a little more miserable than it otherwise would be.

Sort of like this school.

It was such a waste of time even being here. As evidenced by yesterday's disappointing lessons, there was nothing these so-called teachers could say that he hadn't been taught years before by the grandmaster scholars employed at The League of Assassins. His time would be much better spent in the cave underneath Wayne Manor, researching cold cases and bring criminals to justice, instead of "learning" proper grammar by "teachers" he often had to restrain himself from correcting.

_But that's not what you made me attend here for, is it Father?_ He thought, bitterly.

Socializing. What a joke. And completely hypocritical for his Father of all people to tell him to pursue.

It wasn't like Father had suffered for not having any friends his age as a teen, normal friends who didn't even fight super criminals. He had done the rational thing, and traveled the world, honing his skills to become the great man he was today.

When he'd voiced these observations to Alfred, while the Butler had been dusting off some silver memorabilia in one of Wayne Manor's guest rooms, he'd responded in his usual dry voice that perhaps Master Bruce wasn't the perfect example of someone to idolize and follow in the exact same footsteps. That perhaps Master Bruce wished for his son to get a bit more of a normal life, however improbable that seemed, without the intensity or borderline insanity he himself had to go through. That maybe, just maybe, Master Bruce regretted that Master Damian had been thrown into this life at such a young age, and wanted to bring some semblance of normality into it, however unlikely it would seem to work?

Damian couldn't understand that at the time, and he certainly couldn't now. His Father was the Batman. Who else should he strive to be like?

"Hey! Damian! Hi!"

He was shaken from his thoughts by the same feminine voice that had interrupted him and Jon by calling out to them the day before. He turned his head and confirmed his suspicions when he saw the red bowed, strawberry blonde rush towards him, a gleeful smile on her face as she waved frantically to get his attention.

He resisted his urge to roll his eyes at the display. Her backpag was slung over one of her shoulders, smacking against her side with every step she took, which was basically her asking to lose her balance and tripping like she'd done the day before.

_Well, I'm not saving her this time if she does._

Miraculously, she managed to stay upright all the way over to him, where she bent over to rest her arms on her knees, panting heavily at the exertion of running over to him. After a few seconds, she straightened up and gave him another smile.

Damian wondered if he was supposed to start a conversation with her now. He didn't even remember her name. It would probably be better to just stay silent and let her initiate, like she'd already done by running over without any invitation.

Her eyes shifted, looking as if searching for something to Damian's sides, apparently without success as they landed on Damian once again. He crossed his arms, waiting impatiently for her to explain why she'd invaded his personal space.

"So, nice weather we're having today, huh?" She said.

Damian had to suppress another eye roll. Why couldn't these people ever get to the point and just say what it was they wanted from him without jumping through hoops in order to land on a "natural" way to bring it up? He was quite certain that she hadn't called out, running all the way over here in that attention-grabbing way she had, just to point out her idle observations about the weather. It was inefficient, pointless and a waste of time, just like everything else at this school.

"It's certainly sunny." He said, stating the facts. Maybe now that they'd gotten this attempt at smalltalk over with, she could get to the point.

"Yeah." She said, looking up at the sky as if to confirm his statement. "I like it. It's rare we get weather like this in Gotham, and it's been going on for a while now, at least two weeks. It's always nice to get to see the sun, without clouds darkening everything. I find it's easier to focus when the weather's like this, how about you?"

_Good god, she's worse than Kent._

Like him, she was taking something utterly pointless, and turning it into something that had to be discussed in detail. He had to put an end to this or the whole morning would just be spent with her droning on about the weather of all things.

"I find that the visibility of a star millions of miles from us rarely impacts my ability to concentrate." He said. "Was there a reason you came over, or did you just wish to talk meteorology?"

She giggled at that. He raised an eyebrow, wondering what he'd said that could be even vaguely interpreted as humorous.

"You have such a big vocationary! It's really cool!" She said, looking admiringly at him.

"Do you mean vocabulary?" He asked, cringing slightly at her wrong word usage.

"Yeah, that! Totally!" She said, smiling obliviously.

It took all of his effort channeling the years worth of training with the munks of Nanda Parbat, learning the ancient art of meditation and patience, to not smack his own face with his palm in exasperation.

Could he tell her to go away without sounding impolite? Normally he wouldn't care how he appeared to other people, since a big part of his time was spent beating up thieves and murderers who probably didn't have the most generous opinions of him, but he thought it unwise to burn bridges with the girl who'd made friends with the offspring of one of the most powerful beings on the planet. It'd make the Club meetings even more of a pain than they already were.

"Was there something you wanted?" He asked, in the most neutral tone of voice he could muster.

"Hm?" She tilted her head, looking at him as if she'd forgotten what she'd come over for herself. If that really was the case, he doubted he could hold back on releasing the outburst steadily building up inside him.

"Oh, right!" She said, smacking her own forehead lightly and smiled. "I just wanted to see if Jon was with you. I haven't seen him this morning, and I got the impression yesterday that you two were sort of a package deal."

Of course. All she wanted was to talk to Kent. Now that he knew the goal of this pitifully disguised plan of hers, he could swiftly shut her down, and then hopefully she'd leave him alone again.

"Kent has an... _unique_ way to transport himself places, which he takes full advantage of to not arrive earlier than he absolutely needs to, in order to sleep in late on mornings like this. He'll probably be here a few minutes before the bell rings."

"Wow, really?" The girl exclaimed, looking surprised. "Man, he's so lucky. I wish I could sleep in late like that. I used to do that actually, but then I'd get to class too late, and my grades took a serious hit as a result, so the principal ordered me to set up two alarms on my phone, to go off every morning."

"Fascinating." Damian deadpanned. He wondered briefly how bad someone's grades had to get for the school faculty to involve themselves with a student's morning routine.

He couldn't exactly say he was surprised by her story, as it lined up pretty well with the things he knew about her and her personality.

"Ooh, that reminds me!" The girl said, pulling out her phone, seemingly to check the time. "I better head inside. My teacher told me yesterday that if I was late for classes again, I'd get detention for a week. Then I wouldn't be able to attend the Club! Can you imagine?!"

"Truly terrifying." Damian said, in the most monotone voice he could muster.

"I'll just text him instead." She said, turning to make her way into the building. "See you later today, Damian! When you see Jon, tell him I said hi!"

A slight movement from above made Damian turn his head skyward, catching a brief glance of something too large to be a bird, and too quick to be a plane, zooming across the sky before disappearing from sight as it moved above the school building.

"Will do." He called after the girl, as a courtesy, before turning to watch one of the nearby bushes, which rustled slightly before a young, slightly disheveled boy emerged from it, school uniform wrinkled, and small leaves and sticks lodged inside his dark, windswept hair.

Jon Kent yawned, stretching his limbs, before opening his bright blue eyes wich had dark bags beneath them, and catching sight of Damian.

"Oh, good morning Da- Da- _Daaamian_." He said, a yawn stretching out Damian's name.

"Glasses, Kent." Damian said, without acknowledging his greeting. "You have got to remember to put them on, you can't count on me to remind you everyday."

"Yeah, yeah." Jon said, fishing the spectacles out of his pocket, and putting them on. "But for the record, we're just standing here alone in the shadows. There's nobody around to see."

"You can never be-" Damian started.

"Never be too careful, I get it." Jon finished, and released another yawn.

Damian squinted his eyes, giving the half-alien a glare. Was he suggesting he was predictable?

"You look like crap." Damian said, as Jon brushed himself off, and removed the plants from his hair.

"Gee, thanks." Jon said, in a tired voice.

"Did you stay up all night playing that stupid game again?" Damian asked.

"I did not, as a matter of fact." Jon said, sighing. "I had chores to do, and I had to clean my room."

"That couldn't have taken you much more than ten seconds, the way you use your powers for the most trivial things." Damian said, skeptically. "You must have done something else."

Jon frowned.

"Okay, fine. I was working on my poem." Jon groaned. "It took me until 2 am, but I finally managed to write something I felt somewhat happy with."

"Oh." Damian said, not having expected that response from him. "I got mine done in about twenty minutes."

"Of course you did," Jon said bitterly, rolling his eyes. "And I bet you as a result got a good night's rest because of it, right?"

Damian glared at him.

"As a matter of fact, _Kent,_ I was on patrol most of last night. Didn't get home again until 3 am, where I spent the time sleeping until 5 am, before I got up to start my morning training routine."

Jon stared at him in shock, as if it was Damian who was the alien from another planet of the two.

"You only slept for two hours?! Then how are you functioning so well right now?"

"I'm employing the use of a mental technique I learned when I was six." Damian said. "It's where my body enters a meditative state, similar to sleep, but my mind remains as sharp as ever. It means I can watch over everything that happens in the city, while not suffering any fatigue whatsoever. Two hours was me indulging myself. I only needed about half of that time."

Jon sighed.

"Of course you can make sleep sound like a work routine."

"I thought Superman didn't even need to sleep. Isn't that part of your Kryptonian heritage?" Damian asked.

"Dad doesn't need to sleep, or eat for that matter." Jon elaborated. "But I'm half-human. My powers aren't as strong, and I still need all the stuff the average person needs. They think that might change as I get older, but for now, it's like this."

Damian smirked at hearing that. Jon caught it, and looked mildly alarmed.

"Please tell me you aren't putting that on the list of weaknesses you make about every superhero you meet." Jon said.

"Let's just say I have _seventeen_ ways now, without kryptonite." Damian said, smiling wider.

"Ugh!" Jon groaned.

"It's your own fault for sharing your weaknesses with me." Damian said, shrugging. "You will never hear me blabbering about the various ways you could defeat me."

"Oh right, the well kept secret on how to defeat you." Jon rolled his eyes. "Whatever chance would I, the half-alien with super strength, super speed, super durability, flight, heat and x-ray vision, freeze breath and many more powers just waiting to manifest, have against the human brat without superpowers who throws boomerangs at people?"

_"-TT.-"_ Damian scoffed. "If you really think killing me would be that easy, then let us test how well you'd do against me in a no holds barred fight. Or are you that arrogant that you won't back up your claims?"

"Okay, number one, it's rich that _you're_ calling _me_ arrogant." Jon said, raising a finger. "I don't think I've ever hung out with you for more than a day where you haven't made a claim in some form that you'll be a greater hero than any member of the Justice League in the future."

"It's not arrogance if it's the truth." Damian muttered, crossing his arms.

"Number two," Jon continued, raising another finger. "I'm not going to fight you to the death. You're my friend, you big dummy."

Silence lingered between the two for half a minute. At last, Damian spoke up again.

"I don't want to fight you either."

Jon smiled, raising his arms.

"But I _will,_ if you keep on hugging me against my will!" Damian exclaimed, walking a few steps back, raising his arm to make a threatening stop signal to the Boy of Steel.

Jon chuckled, and raised his arms further in an "all right, you win" gesture.

Damian glanced at the giant clock perched high above the school building's doors.

"We should get ready for class. School starts in a few minutes." He said, and motioned to head inside.

As they walked towards the school doors, they noticed that many of the other students had gotten the same idea, as they too started moving towards the door, a sea of uniforms shuffling to get inside, their individual conversations blending into nonsensical muttering.

"I hate that we have to wear these uniforms." Damian muttered, under his breath.

"What? Why? I think they look really stylish." Jon said, picking up on Damian's words through the chattering of the students around them. Probably by using his enhanced hearing.

"It's annoying that I have to share looks with everyone else at this school." Damian growled. "It feels like it's trying to suck out my individuality."

"I kinda like it." Jon said, smiling as he looked around them at the other students. "It feels good to fit in among everyone else, like I'm actually their equal."

"But I am _not_ their equal." Damian said. "I am highly superior to everyone else in this building, and wearing these garments gives off the impression that I'm not."

They entered the building, and found themselves in the hallway.

"I don't know, maybe you can apply for the student council?" Jon suggested, smiling shrewdly. "Then you could have at least some status over the others. Of course, you'd have to somehow be likable enough to get elected for it, and good luck with that."

Damian scoffed.

"I'm not going to waste my time on this school anymore than I already am. It's bad enough that you got me into that club. And for the record, if I were to apply, I guarantee I'd win."

Jon merely shrugged in response.

The Club. One of Damian's few decisions that he was actively regretting.

What had he been thinking yesterday? He'd been so ticked off at everything, even moreso than today where he'd at least gotten some time to get a bit more used to this horrible situation, and had searched desperately for any kind of target to take his anger out on.

He'd found what he thought he was looking for in the Kent boy.

It hadn't been rational, it hadn't been thought through. He'd just seen the look of fear in his face when the females had revealed that the reason of the Club was for literary purposes, and instantly jumped at the chance to punish Kent for dragging him there against his will, by joining the Club preemptively.

It had worked for all of the five seconds where Kent had glared at him angrily, with Damian reveling in his suffering. But when he'd looked over at the chatty blonde with the bow, it was like his anger had melted away, and now Damian was a part of the Club just because he'd tried to rile up Kent.

He took pride in his ability to carefully consider the best possible strategies to determine the best possible outcomes in any given situation, and this hadn't been one of them. His "plan," if one could even call it that, had been one a ten year old comes up with, one who hadn't been trained in martial arts by the League of Assassins, and as a result it had completely backfired, blowing up in his face.

God, he'd been so _stupid!_

They moved further along the hallway, making their way towards their classroom. The thought of the Club and the red-bowed girl reminded Damian of his previous encounter earlier.

"That girl with the bow came over to me this morning." Damian said.

Jon had been looking the other way, but snapped his head in Damian's direction when he heard this, freezing in place. Damian stopped as well, raising an eyebrow at this exaggerated reaction from the boy.

"Sayori came over to you?"

"Oh right, that was her name." Damian said, snapping his finger at the reminder.

Jon didn't look amused.

"Damian. What did you say to her?" Jon asked, in a serious tone.

"What did _I_ say to _her?"_ Damian didn't like what he was implying with that. _"She_ was the one who approached me! And completely unprovoked, might I add."

"Just tell me." Jon said, in an exasperated voice. "Do I need to worry about her thinking I'm friends with a sociopath? I wouldn't put it past you to say something to her that'd make her run away from school, screaming."

Damian stared at him. Did he really think that lowly of him?

"No!" He exclaimed, offended at the suggestion. "She came over, rambled a bit about the weather and sleep schedules, then asked if I knew where you were. And I answered her accurately and politely, to the best of my ability, even if her attempts at conversation felt like getting my teeth slowly pulled from my mouth. And that's not me exaggerating, Professor Pyg actually tried to do that to me once, so I know what I'm talking about."

Jon sighed, and pulled out his phone, madly tapping at the screen.

"What are you doing, Kent?"

"I'm texting her to make sure she isn't mentally scarred for life." Jon mumbled, keeping up the tapping.

_"-TT-"_ Damian scoffed. "Wait, you already got her number? You work fast."

"Shut up." Jon said, absentmindedly as his eyes darted across the small screen, seemingly reading something at a rapid pace. At last, he sighed, and stuffed the phone into his pocket again.

"Alright, she says that you weren't overly rude or disrespectful, and she wasn't offended by anything you said."

"See?" Damian exclaimed, upset that this was as big a deal to Jon as it was. "What have I done to make you doubt my word like this?"

"Are you asking for examples from today, or just in general?" Jon asked, dryly.

"Hilarious." Damian said.

"Look, can't you give the club and the girls in it a chance? They seem like nice people." Jon asked, looking at Damian, with a pleading look in his eyes.

"You met them yesterday. That's not a good enough time frame to determine how 'nice' someone is." Damian said.

"It's also not a a good enough time frame to decide that they're annoying and a waste of time." Jon pointed out.

"Respect is earned, Kent. They haven't given me any reason to respect them, yet."

"You're not exactly giving them a lot of chances." Jon sighed deeply. "Look, for now, you're in the Club. No matter how much you dislike it, that's an immovable fact."

"Don't remind me." Damian mumbled.

"So why not try to look at it a bit more positively? Be nice for once. Smile. Don't make everything a competition to show off how much better you are than them. Make an effort to learn their names. If you can do all that detective work to solve cases the police have been struggling with for years, then surely you can remember the names of four girls."

"You're asking me to be someone I'm not?"

"I'm asking you to give them a chance. I've seen you be nice to people, Damian. I know you don't actually like being seen as a jerk."

Damian stared at Jon, seeing the look of genuine sincerity in his face. He had always wondered how him and his dad did it, keeping up that endless stream of positivity and hope in any given situation.

Him and Damian had been on missions together. Superhero missions. They'd seen the horrors of the world, natural disasters causing thousands of deaths, superpowered murderers, capable and willing to spread an almost unimaginable amount of pain and suffering on their targets, which more often than not happened to be them.

They had confronted these madmen, and triumphed every time. And they'd saved a lot of people's lives by defeating them, sure, but... they couldn't save everyone. That was just not feasible. And as a result of that, they'd seen the tragedies caused by the most evil people on the planet. Men, women, even children, hundreds of them, tortured, mutilated, slaughtered.

It was no use blaming himself for the actions of lunatics and criminals, but it did something to you, being exposed to this mayhem. Perhaps he was screwed up beyond repair, having spent so much of his childhood in the company of killers, who'd even trained him to be one of them. Maybe that was why he hardly batted an eyebrow when he saw the latest unavoidable corpses littered throughout this city, whether it be someone frozen solid by Mr. Freeze, someone who'd tried to scratch their own eyes out as a result of being exposed to Scarecrow's fear toxin, or the nightmare-inducing empty smirk of someone injected with Joker Venom.

They all served to fuel his anger, and strengthened his drive to bring the animals who did those things to justice, but he didn't feel the level of empathy towards the victims that he probably should. When he laid his eyes on the charred bones of someone caught in the crossfire of Firefly, he hardly ever thought about if the owner had a family, friends, or pets. They were just evidence that he had to inspect in order to find and catch the perpetrator.

He knew about all the horrors this insane world they lived in had to offer. And once you knew, it was hard to look past it, nearly impossible to just smile and laugh while knowing just how fleeting everything was, how in the next minute a planet-destroying organism from the far corners of the universe could arrive and lay waste to everything they held dear. He couldn't let anything catch him off guard, he had to be prepared for every possible scenario.

But it wasn't like that with Jon.

Jon had seen the same things as him. He'd experienced his own losses, had fought in his own unwinnable battles. And still, he held on to the belief that everything would be okay. He could smile that boy scout grin he was flashing now, and say something, anything, with that conviction in his voice that no matter how bad things got, they'd get through it.

And when he did, it made Damian want to believe him, despite his logic telling him otherwise.

Jon had kept on to his hope for humanity, even when it seemed like there was none left. In many ways, it made him the most irritating, preachy boy Damian had ever met. And in other ways, it made him the topic of great admiration, even jealousy, as Damian caught himself actually looking up to Superboy's unwavering positive beliefs.

"You... you really want me to join this Club, don't you?"

Jon smiled at him.

"Duh. Of course I do."

"Why?"

"Because you're my friend, dude. And Sayori's my friend, too. And hopefully the others as well, when we get to know each other a little better. I think it would be fantastic if you were a part of this group, a real part of it, who contributed to it and supported the others, instead of just making snide remarks and bragging about how great you are in comparison to us puny mortals. And you know what?"

"What?"

The blue-eyed boy poked his chest with an outstretched finger.

"I think you do too, deep down."

Did he?

It was true that from what little he'd seen of the club yesterday, it had been an overall more enjoyable setting than the rest of the school, helped along in no small way by the pastries the pinkhaired girl had served them. And then she'd soured his mood again by her rude tone and sarcastic remarks towards him.

But... that wasn't really a fair judgment. He had been angry yesterday, and had most certainly been confrontational himself. It was a possibility that maybe, just maybe, he'd deserved what she'd said to him, even if it had annoyed him ceaselessly.

Could he make friends with someone like that? Not likely. But he'd never expected to make friends with the son of Superman, either. Stranger things had happened.

"Do you really think I can do it? I'm not exactly the best at making friends."

Jon didn't laugh at him, which Damian appreciated, and kept smiling that supportive smile which he could never decide if he wanted to love, or hate.

"Of course you can. It's easy to make friends. Just be nice, and take an interest in the things they tell you. Look for things that you can do at the same time. For example, me and Sayori agreed to read together today."

"Reading... together?" Damian said, furrowing his brows skeptically. "That sounds like a hassle, not to mention incredibly inefficient. You'd be sitting right next to each other, and depending on who's the faster reader, one of you would have to wait until the other's done reading, to turn the page. It would ruin the immersion of the book completely."

"Oh, I'm sure we can make it work." Jon said, dismissing Damian's concerns. "Look, if I of all people can be in a Club all about reading and writing, then you can one hundred percent make friends with them. You're Robin! You can do anything you set your mind to!"

_This is true. I am Robin._

And in a few years time, he would take his Father's mantle, and become the Batman.

The idea of making friends with the girls in the Club didn't seem that far off, now. Quite the contrary, actually, it was laughable that he'd ever been worried. He looked at Jon, who was still smiling widely at him, and felt his own lips curl upwards. Was emotional manipulation a part of the average Kryptonian's powerset, or was that exclusive to the hybrids with human DNA? It seemed like that was the only explanation for how the boy could keep affecting his mood like this.

"Alright. I'll give it another shot." He said. "I'm not saying it'll one hundred percent work out, and I'll still call out the things that annoy me, but I won't actively be trying to look for ways to get out of this arrangement."

Jon's eyes lit up brightly at these words, and Damian could tell he was holding himself back from giving him another hug.

"That's all I could ever ask from you. Thank you."

The bell started ringing, signaling that the free period was over, and they should enter their classroom now.

"We better get going." Damian said, and lead the way towards their assigned class.

"Right behind you." Jon said.

As they moved, Damian noticed a strange sensation erupting from his chest as he thought about his declaration to give the Club another chance.

His heart was pounding a bit harder than usual, and it felt like his internal organs were being lightly restrained, as if in a chokehold, making him deftly aware of every breath he took, but surprisingly, it wasn't en entirely unpleasant feeling. And it seemed to grow stronger as his thoughts lingered on the classroom upstairs by the end of the room.

Was he... _excited_ at the prospect of going to the Club later today?

* * *

The bell rang again, for the final time that day, and Damian as well as the other students got out of their seats. Finally, another session of classes, done with.

As he started packing the books he'd used in this class neatly inside his backpack, he briefly wondered what the teaching salary was at this place. If it was anything above minimum wage, he'd lose all his remaining faith in the distribution of the tax payer's money, which was barely existant already. Really, had they found these supposed professors on benches in the park?

He caught sight of Jon at the other end of the room, who as always seemed to think that backpack space was an overrated thing, seeing how he just dumped everything on his table inside of it without a second thought.

He was reminded as he had been throughout the day, of his own claim that he'd try to look at things more positively, and sighed to himself. He definitely didn't have the correct attitude.

He was _sure_ the teachers knew about the subjects they were lecturing about. They just... wanted to teach their students about the dangers of trusting someone else's information blindly instead of researching things themselves, by faking being utterly incompetent at their jobs. Yeah. That had to be it.

"You ready to go?" Jon asked, appearing next to Damian, an excited smile on his face.

"Let's just get this over wi-" He stopped himself before he could finish the sentence, and started over.

"Sure. Can't wait." He said, giving his best attempt at a smile.

Jon smiled himself, but looked unsure.

"Dude, I appreciate that you're trying, but try to be a bit more natural. You don't have to smile if you don't feel like it, and to be perfectly honest, I think your usual scowl would be better than that horror movie villain impression you're doing."

Damian frowned.

"There we go, perfect." Jon said, giving a thumbs up.

"You're an idiot, Kent." Damian growled.

"That's the spirit, let's go!" Jon said, rushing towards the staircase as Damian slouched after him.

_I don't look like a horror movie villain._

They made their way up the staircase and through the narrow hallway, arriving at the door by the end. Damian noted that a longer piece of paper had been plastered above the original "CLUB" sign with cellotape. It had none of the doodles littering the first of blue hearts and flowers, instead simply having the word "LITERATURE" written in extravagant, cursive letters. The juxtaposition between fonts on the two signs were pretty striking.

"Guess they fixed the issue after the misunderstanding yesterday." Jon said, smirking at the sign.

_That's certainly one way to describe intentionally leaving out crucial details to make us join their club._

Damian shook his head.

_Wrong attitude. Positive thoughts!_

"Welp, time to head insi-"

_"Are you actually insane?!"_

Jon's hand froze, inches away from the doorknob, as the slightly muffled highpitched voice could be heard from inside the room. Damian recognized it as belonging to the pink-haired baker.

_"I was merely suggesting that you haven't considered every possibility to this matchup."_ Another voice, lower in pitch, more quiet. Damian identified it as the tall purple-haired girl who'd fawned over him when he'd said he was reading Portrait of Markov.

_"There is no way in HELL,"_ the aggressive voice yelled, putting emphasis on the last word. _"that Batman beats Superman in a fight!"_

Jon and Damian turned their heads, looking at each other in surprise. Jon then lowered his hand, and they leaned in closer, listening.

_"I believe a case can be made for his victory."_ The quiet voice said, a hint of indignation in her tone.

_"Oh yeah?"_ The loud voice said, clearly not taking the other girl seriously. _"Please, tell me what Batman could possibly do to the guy who can bench press planets! Throw a batarang at him?!"_

Jon glanced over at Damian, smirking at him. Damian gave him a dignified look in response, showing that he was far above this pitiful debate.

_"Raw strength isn't everything. Batman is much smarter than Superman, he admitted that himself in an interview!"_

Damian flashed a smirk of his own to the boy beside him, who pretended he didn't see it.

_"It doesn't matter how smart Batman is, when Superman could literally flick him into the sun with a finger. Superman is stronger, and faster than Batman, by like, a gazillion times."_ The highpitched voice said.

Damian wouldn't even acknowledge the expression Jon was sending his way, and elected to ignore him from now on.

_"You're severely underestimating Batman here."_

_"I'm not! I'm just saying that logically, a man without superpowers would lose to the guy who can take bullets to his face without flinching!"_

_"Superman is not unbeatable. He has clear weaknesses, that has been revealed to the public after villains used it against him. Kryptonite, red sun radiation, magic..."_

_"Magic?! What, is Batman going to wave a wand at him?!"_ The louder voice exclaimed, laughing at the idea.

_"I-it was just an example of Superman not being perfect! He has clear weaknesses that someone like Batman could exploit."_ The other voice said, a clear nervous tinge in her tone now.

_"By casting spells at him?"_

_"F-forget about the magic, okay? Batman is a master strategist. He could lure Superman into a trap, use red sun radiation to deplete his powers, and then beat him using kryptonite!"_

_"Why the heck would Superman go down there, when he could just blast Batman with his laser eyes from Orbit?"_

_"Superman wouldn't do that in character."_

_"In character?! This is a a fight to the death between two heroes! Of course it's not in character!"_

"It sure is entertaining to hear them go on like that, right?"

Damian and Jon snapped their heads back, to see the Club President with the long brown hair right behind them, smiling sadly.

_How the hell did she manage to sneak up on us?_ Damian thought in alarm. In fairness, despite Jon's enhanced senses, namely his superhearing, sneaking up on him was usually trivially easy, but he should definitely have heard her coming. Maybe he'd just been distracted by the argument that still went on from inside the room.

_"How would Batman even have the time to set up a trap like that?!"_ The highpitched voice yelled.

_"Batman w-would have set it up beforehand! He's p-prepared for this!"_ The other voice had risen in volume, sounding increasingly flustered as the discussion went on.

_"Does Superman get preptime too?"_

_"O-of course not, don't be ridiculous!"_

"Welcome back, Jon, Damian." The girl said, looking at them with a look of regret in her green eyes, as if she were apologizing for the two girls inside the room. "I know things turned out a bit unexpected yesterday, but I'm so happy you both came back again. Even if this is the first thing you heard."

_"S-Sun Tzu once said that-"_

_"Oh, give me a break! As if Sun Tzu ever had to deal with a freaking alien from Krypton!"_

The tall girl sighed, closing her eyes.

"Sometimes I find myself wishing I wasn't the President of the Club. That way I could just be like you two, and watch this unfold from the sidelines. Unfortunately, it is my duty to have my members speak to each other in a civil tone, and well..."

_"How ignorant can you get?!"_

_"Why don't you just marry Batman since you love him so much?!"_

"...that just ain't it."

"Is there anything we can do?" Jon asked, always looking for ways to help another person in need. The girl smiled at him.

"That's really sweet of you to offer, Jon, but I'm afraid I'll have to decline. When they get like this, you really don't want to involve yourself. They will see any attempt to break them apart as picking a side, and then they'll be insulted for the rest of the day. Don't get me wrong, I love both of them with all my heart, but this really is a matter for the President to tackle, not a completely new member."

She walked past Damian, and reached out for the doorknob.

_"Y'know, I think I've just discovered the one thing too dense for Superman to lift. Your fat brai-"_

_"Hey!"_

it was the Club President's turn to freeze with her hand on the doorknob, when a third voice spoke up from inside. The voice of the person Damian had spoken with this very morning.

Sayori.

_"What if we throw Wonder Woman into the mix? Then who would win?"_

Silence lingered as the question floated in the air. Then, the highpitched voice spoke up again.

_"They wouldn't stand a chance. Wonder Woman would slaughter both of them."_

Next, the other voice spoke up, sounding out of breath from the fierceness of the argument.

_"Agreed. She's far too fast and ruthless, and she doesn't have any weaknesses that I'm aware of."_

_"Yaay! Go Wondy!"_ Sayori exclaimed happily, and a muffled clapping could be heard from inside.

Jon and Damian exchanged glances, then shrugged. It was an agreeable assessment.

The girl in front of them sighed in relief as the argument inside seemed to have been disarmed, her hand still on the doorknob.

"Honestly, we don't deserve Sayori in our lives." She mumbled, and opened the door wide.

The classroom looked the same as it had done yesterday, with six of the desks still pulled together to create a long table of sorts. Damian wondered if nobody else used the room, or if the ones who did just didn't bother to change anything. Based on what he'd seen of the compentence of the teachers here, it could very well be both.

The three girls who they'd heard from outside were all standing by the makeshift table, turning their heads as they heard the door open, and seeing him, Jon and the President emerge.

Sayori was in the middle, face lighting up as she saw Jon, and ran towards him. The two remaining girls being the small girl with the short, pink hair, and the tall one with the long, purple hair.

They were both having flushed, red faces, probably a result of the heated argument they'd been having combined with the surprise of seeing him and the others enter the room so shortly after Sayori had brokered somewhat of a peace treaty between them.

Damian noted much to his disappointment that the sweet scent of cupcakes from yesterday were no longer present in the room, which didn't exactly help in improving his mood. He supposed it would be a bit unrealistic to expect having baked goods served at every meetup, but still, their absence did leave a hole that hadn't been there yesterday.

"Oh. H-hi, Damian." The tall girl said, smiling timidly at him.

"Greetings." He responded, cringing on the inside. Of course she remembered his name. He'd have to pay attention to see if he could pick up hers, and everyone else's today. He didn't know much about social interactions, but even he realized that admitting a person's name hadn't been memorable enough to remember, would be incredibly rude. And as per his deal earlier today, he wouldn't be that guy in here anymore.

_I should have asked Kent to remind me._ He thought, and glanced over at the boy who was currently chatting with Sayori.

"Hey Jon!" Sayori exclaimed, standing in front of the boy, a bright smile on her face. "How was your day? Did you get my messages?"

"Hey Sayori! Classes were kinda boring, but not too bad. Didn't I respond to your messages? I think that would be hard to do if I didn't get them." He said, a smile rivaling hers on his own face.

"Oh, right!" Sayori said, giggling.

Damian resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

"You guys missed me and Yuri having the funniest debate." The pinkhaired girl said, and despite the lighthearted smile on her face, the lingering bitterness and wish for confrontation in her voice was clear. "You should have heard her go on. It's as if she genuinely thinks a man in a Dracula costume could beat Superman."

_Yuri._

"Yes. A very fun experience, all around." Yuri said, not even pretending to not be bothered as she glared at the smaller girl. "What was particularly amusing was when Natsuki ignored every point I made, cherrypicked arguments I never even voiced in the first place, and outright refused to acknowledge that Batman is a founding member of the Justice League, and as such shouldn't be taken as lightly as she did."

_Natsuki._

"And what was really great, was when she tried to quote Sun Tzu of all thi-" Natsuki began, but was interrupted when the green-eyed President spoke over her.

"Okay, everyone! The Literature Club is now in session, so quit your chattering and grab your reading material!" She said in a hurried voice, probably to distract Yuri and Natsuki to keep from fighting again.

"Okay, seriously Monika, I have to know why you start every announcement you make of with 'okay, everyone.' Is that your fun quirky catchphrase like the writing tips, or do you spend so much of your time talking to the Google lady at your home that you can't start a conversation without saying 'Okay?'" Natsuki asked, seemingly annoyed at having been talked over.

_Monika, Natsuki, Yuri._

Damian went over their names in his head, assigning them to each person and recited them over and over until he'd memorized them.

"Always nice to walk in to greet your Club members and have your speech patterns attacked. Thanks, Natsuki." Monika said, giving the smaller girl a tired smile.

Natsuki shrugged.

"You could just find new words to say. This is a club about literature, so it shouldn't be that hard for you."

"Natsuki?" Sayori spoke up, looking over at her from where she was standing with Jon.

"What?!" Natsuki snapped, turning her head rapidly to glare at the red-bowed girl.

"How much did you have to eat today?" Sayori asked, without flinching at the pinkette's open hostility.

There was silence in the room as Natsuki widened her eyes, looking as if she'd just been slapped in the face. A blush crept up her face, and she lowered her head.

"I don't see what that's got to do with anything." She told her feet, in a low voice.

"Here." Sayori said kindly, walking across the room, while retrieving a purse from her bag. She rummaged in it a bit, and pulled out a dollar bill, which she handed to Natsuki, who looked up, an expression of shock on her face.

"Go to the vending machine down the hall. I think it has some of those Doritos you like today, the sweet chilli, right?" Sayori said, smiling gently.

Natsuki looked at the dollar bill, then back at Sayori's face, and shifted between the two a few times. She opened her mouth, but it didn't look like she knew what to say, so she closed it again. At last, she snatched the money out of the blue-eyed girl's hand, and trampled out of the room without saying another word.

Silence lingered in the wake of this, before Monika spoke up.

"You really shouldn't be giving her your money like that, Sayori."

"I agree." Yuri said, quietly. "You're rewarding her for acting childish."

"She's not a dog, Yuri." Sayori said, a sad look in her eyes as she looked up at the taller girl. "She knows that kind of behaviour isn't okay. And like... Everyone gets a little cranky when they're hungry, right?"

"Then she should remember to bring her own money." Yuri said. "Instead of taking her bad mood out on us."

"You know she won't pay you back." Monika said.

"It's no big deal." Sayori said, dismissively. "It was just a dollar."

She looked towards Damian, then Jon, a pleading look in her eyes.

"Please, don't think less of her because of this. She's actually really nice, most of the time. She just has bad days sometimes, like all of us do."

"Sure." Jon said, looking at the door Natsuki had walked through with a worried expression. "She seemed really cool yesterday, so I'm sure I'll like her a lot, when I get to know her better."

Damian suspected he was thinking back to the moment yesterday, where Natsuki told him how much she approved of his comic books. He didn't really have any positive experiences with the girl, but he didn't think voicing this would be a good idea when he was supposed to give them all a second chance.

He gave a non-verbal grunt of agreement.

"I've known Natsuki for most of my life." Yuri spoke up. "And she _is_ cool. Not to mention incredibly talented, as I'm sure you all saw yesterday with her cupcakes. But she can be extremely insensitive, rude and dismissive of other people, and that's on good days. On bad days like this, she becomes downright toxic to be in the same room with, and those days are becoming more and more frequent."

"I'll try talking to her." Monika said, sighing. "I noticed some things during last week too, but I figured it was just nervousness at being in this new club and everything. If this is how she is on a regular basis, that might be a problem."

"Don't be too harsh on her." Sayori said. "And can we not talk like this about her, around her back? It doesn't feel right."

Damian noted that she did look very uncomfortable about this conversation.

"Yes. You're right, Sayori." Monika said, and forced a smile back on her face. "So, did you all make a poem for today?"

They all made affirmative noises, confirming that they had.

"Natsuki made hers, too." Yuri said quietly, looking at Monika, as if afraid she would spark up the previous discussion again. "She told me earlier today."

"Super." Monika said, nodding at Yuri to acknowledge the information. "I'm thinking we share them near the end of our meeting. We could use some quiet reading time, to calm our nerves."

"That sounds fine with me." Yuri said, smiling.

"Jon, do you have a book you can read? If you don't, I can help you find something you might enjoy." Monika asked, smiling approachably at the boy.

"Uh..." Jon began, a look resembling a deer caught in the headlights on his face.

"That's okay!" Sayori said hurriedly, pulling up a book from her own bag, and running over to them. "Me and Jon agreed that we'd read together today, so I brought a new book for us both!"

The book's cover had what looked like a young boy in an orange t-shirt wielding a spear of sorts in a dramatic, heroic pose. He was facing forwards, face obscured as lightning was striking all around him.

It definitely looked like a "Jon" type of book, some kind of ridiculous fantasy novel that Damian would never in a million years be caught reading.

"Oh." Monika said, blinking. Damian thought he could hear a faint tone of disappointment in her voice, but it was gone when she spoke up again.

"What wonderful initiative you're taking, Miss Vice President."

Monika gave her an appreciative clap on her shoulder, to which Sayori giggled.

Damian pulled out his own book, which had a red cover and a single large eye on the front.

"Oh! You really are reading Portrait of Markov!"

Damian turned his head to see that Yuri had walked up behind him, smiling as she saw his book.

"You doubted me?" He asked. Her smile vanished.

"Oh, no. N-not at all. I just... uh, I think it's really neat that we're reading the same book. Like, that's a funny coincidence."

He looked on as she struggled to form her sentence. Had he already screwed up this interaction? What was he even supposed to respond with? It wasn't that big of a coincidence, and certainly not one that would warrant her coming over to him and talk like this. What did she really want from him?

"I suppose so." He tried, and noted that she blushed.

Had he said something wrong again?

"W-well, I h-hope you e-enjoy it." Yuri stammered, slowly moving backwards. "I- I really think it's one of the best books to come out this year, I'm surprised there's not a lot more reading it. Then again, it is horror, which turns a lot of people off from it, unfortunately. I- I think it's really cool that you can read this stuff."

"Alright." Damian said, idly wondering why exactly she was telling him all of this.

"W-well, I'll be reading it myself. I started last week, so I'm about half way through it. Uh, I'll make sure not to spoil it, if you would want to talk about it later."

"Appreciated." Damian said, already starting to tune her out. He really was trying to give everyone here the benefit of the doubt, but he just couldn't stand these pointless smalltalks which just dragged on and on without even going anywhere. He caught a slight movement out of the corner of his eye.

He turned his head to see Jon stealthily wave a hand at him from the far end of the table comprised of desks, while Sayori was talking obliviously next to him, seemingly reading him the plot synopsis from the back of their book. When seeing that he'd gotten his attention, Jon stopped waving, and turned his eyes pointedly towards Yuri, who was starting to walk towards the corner they'd initially seen her read at yesterday, then his eyes darted back to make eye contact with Damian.

Damian raised an eyebrow, wondering what the boy was trying to tell him. Jon now tilted his head towards the girl, nudging it a few times in an attempt to further get his unknown message across.

Damian felt his irritation grow. How was tilting his head supposed to be clearer than pointing eyes? He shrugged at Jon, and whispered _"what"_ to tell him that he didn't understand what he was trying to say. It was too quiet for anyone without enhanced hearing to pick it up.

Jon rolled his eyes in exasperation, then turned to mouthing words to get his point across.

_"She wants to read with you, idiot!"_ Damian lip-read.

He furrowed his brow, confused. Where did he get that idea from? She'd just come up to him, oversharing her feelings about a book. And more importantly, why hadn't she just told him so? It was unlikely that he would have accepted, but it was downright impossible when she wouldn't voice her request at all.

_"Ask her if she wants to read with you!"_ Jon mouthed.

_"No."_ Damian whispered back. He still thought reading together was one of the worst ideas he'd ever heard.

_"You promised you would give them a chance!"_

Damian closed his eyes, trying to will strength into himself. He was so going to regret this.

"Yuri." He called out, already cringing at himself. The tall girl stopped, halfway across the room to her corner.

"Y-yes?" She said, looking at him with a mix of apprehension and hope.

Feeling exceedingly stupid at even humoring this, Damian decided to jump in with both legs.

"Would you... maybe want to... read this together?" He held up the book. "With me?"

"Read... together?" She repeated, a look downright resembling fear on her face, as she blushed deeply.

She didn't want to do it. Of course she didn't. Jon had misinterpreted her rambling, or maybe he had just fed Damian misinformation and made him ask her to make a fool out of himself. He glared angrily at Jon who wasn't paying attention as he had begun reading the book Sayori had brought. He would pay for this.

"Forget it." Damian said. "It was a stupid idea anyway. I just thought maybe... since we were reading the same book..."

What was he even trying to say? He couldn't even make this sound like a decent idea himself.

"N-no!" She said, shaking her head. "I- I'd love to read with you!"

And sure enough, Damian saw to his surprise that a smile of genuine joy crept upon her face as she walked back towards him.

He caught another movement, and saw Jon's hand had formed into a thumbs up, as he kept his head lowered to read.

"Oh." Damian said, dumbfounded, as Yuri took a seat next to him. He was unused to this feeling. He didn't like it very much. "Well, I'm not that far along with it, since I just started yesterday. You don't think it's boring to read the same passages?"

"Oh no, it's no trouble at all." She said, smiling nervously. "I- I really like this book. I'll probably re-read it at least twice after I'm done with it. It's completely fine."

"Alright then." He said, feeling awkward, as he flipped the pages to find the spot he'd reached yesterday. He placed the book at a position at the table on the midway point between him and Yuri, so they could both see equally much of the book.

"This okay with you?" He asked.

"Yes, it's perfect." She said, her eyes already going from side to side as she read.

Damian supposed he'd better get started as well.

He began reading, immersing himself into the story. He didn't exactly share Yuri's level of appreciation for it, but it was entertaining enough to pass the time in a vaccuum. He finished reading the two pages, and motioned to turn the page.

Yuri made a quiet sound, almost inaudibly, as if he'd done something she hadn't expected. He turned his head to look at her questioningly, then realized.

"You weren't done reading?"

"Uhm..." Yuri said, blushing deeper. At this point, her whole face was starting to resemble that of a pomegranate. "...no. It uh, went a little too fast for me. But it's fine, I've read it already."

He suppressed a sigh, as he turned the page back.

"It's not fine. It defeats the purpose of doing this if you can't keep up. It's me who should read slower."

He was already regretting this.

"How about you flip the pages when you're done reading?" He suggested.

"Uhm, okay. If you say so." She said, not making eye contact, her face still blushing.

He turned his attention towards the book again, and began re-reading the pages. And he did it again. And again. How slow was this girl at reading? Or had she forgotten the arrangement already, and was just waiting for him to flip the page? Should he say something? Make a signal to her that she could do it now? But if she really was this slow at reading, he might offend her. But if not, they might never get past these pages. What did he do?

Then, at long last, she turned the page with a mildly shaking hand.

She had to be kidding him. It had taken her two and a half minutes to read two pages from start to finish?

The door to the room creaked open, and both Yuri and Damian turned in their seats to see Natsuki enter the room. She stopped up briefly in the doorway, taking note of the quiet atmosphere in the room as a result of everyone reading. Her eyes darted from Monika who was sitting by herself at the middle of the conjoined tables, holding a white covered book, with a small picture of a black train seemingly crashing through an orange wall. Next, she looked to the far end, seeing Jon and Sayori sitting with their fantasy novel.

Finally, her eyes met Damian's, and he noted how her eyebrows rose in surprise at seeing Yuri next to him, reading a shared book. It seemed to take her a few moments to get over that sight.

Everyone in the room had turned their gaze towards the pinkhaired girl, who seemed frozen in the doorway. Monika lowered her own book, and cleared her throat discreetly. Natsuki was shaken from her moment of inaction, looking over at Monika who pointed to an empty seat by the far left of her, indicating for her to sit down. Natsuki frowned, and walked around the table, her head lowered. As she made her way behind Jon's end, she briefly raised her hand to place it on Sayori's shoulder, squeezing it before moving on. Sayori smiled.

Natsuki hurried behind Monika, and got to the spot she'd indicated, sitting down, all without saying a single word. She bent low, fishing something out from her bag underneath the table, and emerged holding what looked to be a magazine of some sorts.

Damian glanced at the cover, seeing a very scantily clad woman drawn in an unmistakable japanese style with what appeared to be cat ears on her head, and figured it was probably one of those mangas she had mentioned the previous day.

Natsuki opened it up, and started reading, as silent as Damian had ever seen her.

He turned his attention down to the book he was trying to read with Yuri, once again.

Every prejudice he'd had about this arrangement had turned out be true. He had to turn his head uncomfortably to read the pages on Yuri's side, and even crane it a bit since it was slightly hidden behind the girl's larger than average chest area. He didn't like being this close to her, it just felt wrong, and distracted him more than anything else. He could even catch the smell of something overwhelmingly sweet he didn't recognize, which had to be her perfume.

All these things might be something he could look past if he could just focus on the book they were supposed to be reading, but nothing ruined his immersion more than being forced to wait for the girl to finally finish reading the damn pages.

He glanced up at her face to check if she were still reading, and caught her looking at him, instead of the book. Once she realized he was looking at her as well, she quickly turned her gaze down again, face flushed with red.

Great. Now he could add "checking to see if she's even reading the book" to the list of things he could do during these unbearably long times where he couldn't read himself.

And just when he thought things couldn't possibly get any worse, another distraction revealed itself to him.

Giggling.

He slowly raised his head from the book, and looked across the tables to the far end, seeing Jon and Sayori, hands in front of their mouths in a futile attempt to muffle the sound of their own laughing at something they alone apparently found funny.

He rolled his eyes, having expected this from the moment he saw them interact together for the first time. They complimented each other's personalities a little too well, to the point where one's laughter would only serve to enable the other's, catching them in a feedback loop of sorts. Frankly, he was surprised it hadn't happened sooner.

As they kept going, he looked around the rest of the table, noting that the others had definitely noticed the two noise offenders as well, but were politely overlooking them, nobody wanting to be the one to put a stop to their joy, even if they kept glancing up from their reading material, shooting an annoyed look over at the pair, before making an attempt to get back into their respective books again.

Well, if nobody wanted to be the jerk who called them out, he supposed he had to take on the mantle.

"Are you two quite certain you've properly understood the point of this exercise?" He asked, his voice ringing loud and clear in the near silence of the room.

They stopped laughing, blushing as they smiled at each other, embarrased at having been called out.

"Yeah, honestly pipe down." Natsuki said, speaking up for the first time since she'd entered the room again, shooting a glare at Jon. Her voice sounded a little more hoarse than it had done at the beginning of their meeting.

"It's perfectly fine to have fun; it's what this Club is all about." Monika said, trying to keep a diplomatic tone of voice. "But perhaps you could be a little more considerate of the others around you."

"Right." Jon said, still smiling as he turned his head down towards his book again.

"Sorry." Sayori gasped, out of breath from her laughing fit, and did the same.

Not ten seconds went by before their giggling filled up the room again.

"Really now!" Yuri exclaimed in a tone where no patience seemed to remain, flashing a stern look at them, which everyone else in the room echoed.

"So, so sorry." Jon said, rising from his chair, and grabbing hold of their book. "We'll go down in the other end so we don't bother you guys."

Sayori couldn't even speak as she got out of her chair, giggling so hard that tears were streaming down her face. She rushed after Jon, catching her foot on the leg of a chair and nearly toppling over in her hurry to catch up, which only made her laugh harder.

At long last, they were over by the end of the room, which brought some much appreciated quiet over the table.

Damian suppressed a sigh, as Yuri _finally_ flipped another page of the book.

This would be a long reading session.

* * *

"All right, I think that's enough reading for today." Monika said.

Damian had never been this relieved to stop reading, if one could even call what he'd been doing that. He usually only read a book once, not sharing Yuri's willingness to re-read books, but he was pretty sure he had read the pages today at least five times each because of that snail's pace Yuri had kept him in. He wondered if there was a polite way to ask if they could never do that again in the future.

He hurried to close the book, the impact of the cover slamming shut scaring the taller girl next to him, making her recoil slightly. It was hard to feel bad for doing that, since she'd just spent forty minutes mentally torturing him, however inadvertent it might have been.

He hated wasting his time, and while he probably wouldn't have been able to finish the book himself in these forty minutes, he would have at least gotten much further than this. They hadn't even reached the half-way point!

"I- Is the meetup over already?" Yuri asked, a confused look on her face as she looked at Monika, who smiled back at her.

"Not quite, Yuri. We still have to share poems, remember?"

Monika gave a wink, and Yuri's confusion was replaced by fear as her face turned pale.

"Oh no." She said, in a small voice.

Monika walked over to her, clapping her shoulder in support.

"You'll be fine. Don't worry, this is everyone's first time."

This seemed to do nothing to ease Yuri's mind. Monika turned on the spot, to face Jon and Sayori down at the end of the room.

"All right, you chuckleheads!" She called out, making them look up. "Time to join the rest of us, chop chop!"

They began making their way towards the rest of the group, goofy smiles still on their faces.

"What the heck was so funny, anyway?" Natsuki asked, closing her manga and putting it back inside her bag.

"It was just something stupid." Jon said, blushing.

"There was a part where a school teacher turned into a monster, and then Jon compared her to Miss Robinson, from Math Class." Sayori said, laughing again as she recalled the joke.

Natsuki, and everyone else present, merely stared at her, silent.

"I think uh, it was one of those things where you had to have been there." Jon said, sheepishly.

"We were." Damian said, dryly. "And it wasn't funny then, either."

Yuri made a small, amused sound next to him as she heard his comment.

"I'm glad you two had fun." Monika said, smiling. "Now, how about we get started on sharing some poems?"

"Do we really have to?" Yuri asked, fear still in her eyes.

"I sincerely hope we do, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered writing mine." Damian said.

Perhaps it wasn't the kindest thing he could have said, but he was starting to get pretty tired of this girl's mannerisms. There were limits to how shy one could be before it got annoying.

"We'll help each other get through this." Monika said. "This is my first time sharing my writing, too. So, who wants to go first?"

Nobody said anything. It seemed that no one wanted to take that first leap.

"Nobody?" Monika asked, a slight hint of disappointment in her voice.

Damian sighed.

"I suppose there is no logical reason in saving the best for last after all." He said, reaching into his bag to retrieve his poem, contained within a translucent plastic folder.

"Ooh, confidence. I like it." Monika said, an excited tone in her voice as she saw him pull out his poem.

"So, how is this going to work?" Damian asked. "Do we just give each other our poems to read?"

"Uh, sure. Hold on." She reached into her own bag, taking out a small piece of paper, and handed it to him. He gave her his poem in return.

Her smile fell a fraction when she looked at it.

"Damian, this... this is three pages."

"Yes. I know." Damian said, wondering why she was informing him of the length of his own work.

Her smile turned into a frown when she looked at it closer.

"Oh. Wow, okay. Didn't expect this level of dedication."

"You didn't say there was any word limit to the poems we wrote." Damian pointed out.

"No, no I get that." She said, eyes darting over the pages, as a nervous smile appeared on her face. "And I, uh, really appreciate the hours of work I'm sure this must have taken you, I really do."

"Overcompensating, much?" Natsuki commented from behind Damian, raising an eyebrow as she looked at the poem in Monika's hands. Damian squinted at her, suspicious.

"Meaning what, exactly?" He asked her.

"Oh, nothing. It's just, you know what they say about short guys."

Damian furrowed his brows.

_She really knows the perfect ways to get on my nerves, doesn't she?_

"Last I checked, I was taller than you." He said, trying not to show anger at her.

"By like an inch." She shot back. "And anyway, your point fails horribly since my poem is actually at a length you can read in this lifetime."

"Thank you for the input, Natsuki." Monika said, a bit sternly, looking up from Damian's poem.

She cleared her throat.

"Thank you, Damian, for writing this and sharing it with us." She said. "I am very grateful. Truthfully. I will start reading it now, but it might take me a bit to get through it, so why don't you guys pair up and start sharing with each other?"

"Sure, okay." Jon said, and turned to look at Sayori, whose face lit up as she did the same.

"Yuri, can we share with each other?" Natsuki asked the purple-haired girl, in a pressing tone of voice.

"Me?" Yuri asked, looking even more scared than she'd already been at the prospect of sharing with Natsuki. "Uh, now?"

"Yes, now." Natsuki said, a bit impatiently. "Do you have your poem on you?"

Yuri nodded slowly, and pulled a small piece of paper out of her pocket, with shaking hands.

"Great." Natsuki said, and started pulling her along over to a corner of the room. "I need to talk to you for a second as well."

Yuri looked far from okay as she was dragged away by the pinkhaired baker, but otherwise didn't protest.

To Damian's right, Sayori and Jon were already sharing their poems, looking like they were trying, and failing, to focus on their papers instead of each other.

"Well, we better get started." Monika said, sitting down at the edge of the table, and started reading. "You can just begin reading mine, if you want."

He started reading.

He blinked.

He read through it again.

_What?_

He squinted at it, trying to derive some form of meaning from the text, without success. He looked at the girl sitting on the table, as if he could somehow collect the meaning from the text by looking at the author.

Monika was oblivious to his staring, head bent down focusing on his poem. Her eyes were darting back and forth, her lips silently moving to form the words he'd written. He wouldn't get any help in understanding her poem from her.

And to his horror, it looked like she was an even slower reader than Yuri.

He looked down at her poem again, frowning as he was filled with determination to find some form of sense in her poem. If he had to describe it with one word, it'd have to be "abstract." From what he could tell, the poem was about a person looking through a hole, to see someone else looking through it, with a lot of that beforementioned "abstract" stuff, filled in throughout. Maybe it was about someone spying on someone through a keyhole? It did mention something about a neighbor and a boyfriend at the start of it. Maybe it was about surveillance, keeping watch to make sure people were safe?

There were a lot of things in his theory that didn't exactly add up with the contents of her poem, but it was the best he could come up with. He wouldn't pretend as if he liked it very much. It was very short, he couldn't make sense of it, and it didn't even rhyme.

He noticed Monika finally reaching the second page.

He'd have to resort to the strategy he'd employed at the previous reading session with Yuri, looking at the others for some form of content while he waited for the girl to get done.

Sayori and Jon were happily talking to each other, gesturing at the poems in their hands, excited expressions on their faces. By lip-reading, he was able to catch the words "so good," "great" and "really like it!" from the girl, with Kent responding to her compliments with things like "thank you." It was very, very dull to watch, so he turned his attention to the other pairing.

Natsuki was seemingly talking up a storm to Yuri, by the looks of things, her mouth moving at a rapid pace while the taller girl merely stood quiet, listening. She didn't look very happy.

It didn't look like they were discussing poems.

It was hard to decipher what Natsuki was saying when she was talking that fast, but he did catch words like "sorry," "argument," "feelings," and "Superman." Perhaps she was apologizing about her heated debate earlier about which one of the heroes would win?

Then, he saw her say "Damian," and he raised an eyebrow, paying closer attention. He caught words like "be careful, "don't trust," and "always happens."

What the hell were they talking about?

Yuri's face was turning red, but it didn't look like it was solely because of embarrassment this time, with a hint of anger making itself evident on her face. She held up a hand that put an end to Natsuki's talking, and walked away with a frown on her face. Natsuki looked after her, looking mildly disstressed, but then she caught sight of Damian, and scowled at him as they made eye contact. Damian sent a frown of his own her way.

"Damian? Can I ask you something?" Monika said, making him turn his head towards her. She was still reading, her eyes still examining the same page she'd reached before he turned his attention away from her.

"Yes?" He said, expectantly.

"I'm about over halfway through now, and I just wanted to ask... what are you trying to say with this poem?"

"Say?" He asked, not understanding.

"Don't get me wrong, this is like... expertly written." Monika said, looking up at him with sincere, green eyes. "The grammar is absolutely flawless, and there hasn't been a single typo so far. Plus, your handwriting is something else to behold."

"Naturally." He said.

"Right. It's just... What is the meaning behind this poem? What are you trying to get across with it?"

_You wonder about where my meaning is, when your own poem was so incomprehensible?_

"I don't follow." He said, truthfully. "It's a poem. I looked up some of the greatest poets of all time, examined their style, and used them to create something new."

"Right, I can definitely see that, and it's very professionally replicated." She said, looking down again. "But what are _you_ trying to get across with this? Why did _you_ feel the need to write this?"

"Because... you told us to write a poem for today, and share it?" He said. He was really struggling to understand what she was asking.

"Hm." Monika furrowed her brow, and continued reading. "Alright, then."

Damian didn't miss the disappointment in her tone.

* * *

"So... you want breakfast?" Damian asked the bright eyed girl in front of him, lowering the poem of hers that he'd just read.

Sayori giggled in response, as she so often did.

"I kinda just wrote down the things that were on my mind at the time." She said, smiling at him. "I must've been hungry at that point."

"Right..." He said, examining her poem again. It certainly read like what he assumed a normal person's train of thought was like in the morning, someone who maybe didn't follow his training schedule. He couldn't relate to it, but at least it was more understandable than Monika's.

Plus, it rhymed.

A bit.

It did strike him as odd that Sayori could write about something as simple as the sun waking her up, and not get any flack, while his poem was dissected and critisized for not having any "meaning," whatever that meant.

"I see you really like sleeping." He said, in an attempt to make conversation, even though there really wasn't a lot to talk about.

"Eheh..." She chuckled softly, doing that weird thing with her index fingers he'd seen her do yesterday as well, and blushed. Was it like an unique tic of hers that she did whenever she got embarrased? He'd never heard of a muscle spasm manifesting itself in that kind of way, but he figured it would probably be rude of him to ask her about it if it truly was outside of her control.

"Sleeping is... kinda the thing I'm best at." She elaborated, "I know that probably sounds a bit silly and more than a little sad, but... it is what it is. It's just so uncomplicated, y'know? Everyone can do it, everyone does it, and it's something where you just lie still and don't have to worry about anything. It's... nice."

He raised an eyebrow. He really didn't share her opinions about sleeping.

To him, sleep was a weakness, a hurdle for him to overcome, which was why he practiced the meditation method the munks of Nanda Parbat had taught him, so he could do as little of it as possible. Sleep was something that stole away precious time, time that could be used on more important things, like protecting the innocent. It was his body succumbing to fatigue, and demanding recharge, like a piece of tech running out of batteries, forcing him to leave himself in an overly vulnerable state for far too long, or face the devastating consequences of ignoring his body's needs.

"What about nightmares?" He asked, challenging her viewpoint. "And insomnia? Don't you get that at all?"

"Oh, well," She began, looking slightly uncomfortable with his questions. "I get bad dreams sometimes, yeah. And they can be nasty, sure. But the trick to dealing with them is realizing that they're just your thoughts drifting off to dark places, like they sometimes like to do, and try not to dwell on them too much. Plus, it's always such a relief to wake up from a nightmare, and realize none of it was real, and you can just stop worrying about whatever happened in them. In dreams, nothing has consequences that can haunt you for the rest of your life, and I think that's very reassuring."

Damian was lightly impressed by Sayori's ability to go on about any topic at all, even when it was something completely inconsequential, like sleeping.

"I suppose so." He said, handing back her poem. "It was a decent poem, by the way. Certainly not the worst I've seen."

Her face lit up again at his compliment.

"Oh, thank you so much! I'm really happy you liked it!"

He wouldn't really go so far as to say he _liked_ it, but there was no need to correct her. Especially with Jon likely listening in on their conversation to make sure that he wasn't flinging insults at her.

"I liked yours, too!" Sayori said, handing him back his own poem.

"Did you now?" He asked, skeptically.

"Oh, totally!" She said, happily. "I mean, I won't pretend that I'm smart enough to really get it, but the things I were able to understand, I really liked!"

"That's good." He said, attempting to give a smile, but relaxed into a more neutral expression when he remembered Jon's comment about him looking creepy when he did that. "What was your favorite part?"

"W-what's that?"

"What part of my poem was your favorite to read?" He asked, looking at her eyes which didn't seem to want to look back at him. "You said there were parts you were able to understand, so you must have a part you liked better than the others."

"Oh... well..." She said slowly, her blue eyes flickering wildly, looking in every possible direction, except his. "Gee... I don't know... They were all so great, y'know...?"

"It's a simple enough question, really." Damian pressed on, keeping his stare up. "Just tell me which part you liked. Doesn't even have to be a favorite, just any part at all."

"Uhm. Well." She said, looking desperately around her for a way out. At last, she took a deep breath, and spoke very fast. _"I'msorryIcouldn'treadityourhandwritingwastoospirallypleasedon'thateme!"_

She didn't wait for him to reply, and ran off to hide behind Yuri who was surprised by the sudden appearance of her shorter classmate while she was sharing poems with Monika.

Damian let out a sigh. He'd expected this, seeing as if she really had read it, she would have been the fastest reader in this class by far, having only spent ten seconds staring at the middle of each page, without even moving her eyes.

* * *

"Yeah, no, I'm not reading this." Natsuki said, who'd finished reading the first page, and was now skimming the two remaining.

"Just like that?" He asked, a bit annoyed, but not surprised in any way by her dismissal.

"Yup." She said, no hint of shame in her voice. "Look, I can appreciate you trying, and it certainly looks nice, but that's really just surface level stuff. Truth is, it's pretty bad."

She gave him back his poem.

"You certainly don't hold back." He commented.

"Never have, never going to," She said, smiling smugly. "Your poem reads like someone who's absorbed all of these other works by great artists, and then regurgitated their words at random on three pages, without any consideration for themes and deeper meaning. It's just a whole bunch of fancy words thrown about to give off the illusion of content, but really it's saying nothing."

Damian's eye twitched. This girl really had a special talent for getting on his nerves. He tried not to let it show.

"Monika said a similar thing." He said, glancing over at the President, currently engaged in conversation with Jon. "Although she was a bit more considerate towards my feelings."

She snorted.

"Ha! Feelings! Good one!"

Damian briefly considered making an exception to the promise he'd made of being nice to these girls, just towards this one, but before he could get any further with this line of thought, she spoke up again.

"Monika _would_ say that and probably in a nicer way than me, but I bet she didn't give you many suggestions on how to improve it, did she?"

"Not particularly, no."

"Thought so. See, the problem here is that you had no emotions writing this poem, which is absolutely vital when writing anything. Am I right in thinking that you probably didn't even want to write a poem in the first place?"

"More or less."

"So if you don't care about the things you're writing, why should your readers?"

He stared back at her. He supposed she _did_ have somewhat of a point there, she was just being incredibly annoying and smug about it.

"My suggestion for you is to go home, and try to dig deep into what remains of your heart, until you find something you feel really strongly and passionate about. And then, you just write about whatever it was you found. It doesn't have to be three pages, in fact, _please_ don't make it three pages. As long as it's honest, it can be as few as three words."

"Like 'I want breakfast?'"

She grinned at him, having already read Sayori's poem.

"Yeah, excactly like that. Sayori is a mad genius, I laughed out loud when I read that part. It was honest, to the point, and funny as hell. You should take notes on how to write from her."

"Or I could just ignore your nitpicks and keep doing what I want to do." Damian said. Why should he listen to the girl who'd done nothing but make fun of him, insulting him, and telling him how terrible he was at everything from the moment he'd walked through the door into this miserable Club?

She shrugged.

"Sure, 100%, go for it. I think it's a pretty rotten attitude to have, ignoring constructive criticism and keep writing when you don't even care about your own work, but you do you."

He frowned.

"Can I see your masterpiece, then? To get some guidelines on how a professional like you writes her highly superior poems?" He asked, putting all of his sarcasm into his sentence.

Her face lit up, completely unbothered by his tone of voice. As if she was relishing the challenge.

"Absolutely." She said, smiling as she handed him her piece of paper. "Read it and weep."

It was the shortest poem he'd read today.

"Are you serious?" He asked, staring disbelievingly at it. "This is supposed to be better than mine? This reads like a children's book, repeating a bunch of animals and the absolute minimum, barebones surface level abilitites they have, before squeezing an obvious punchline in by the end!"

"Sure." She said calmly, looking completely unperturbed by his outburst. "And you were able to understand, and read all of it, which is a little more than what could be said about yours. Things don't have to be complicated to mean something, y'know?"

Damian stared at the shorter girl, who was staring back at him, that irritating look of smugness still on her face, and handed her back her poem.

He really did not care for her or her personality at all.

* * *

"Okay, everyone! Are we about done sharing now?" Monika called out to the room.

"Yuri's still reading through mine." Damian said, pointing back at the tall girl who was standing a little behind him, her eyes frantically moving down his pages.

_And taking her sweet time doing it, too._

"Y-you guys go on ahead!" She said, briefly looking up. "I-I'm nearly done, and I'll join you once I've finished!"

"Super." Monika said, smiling. "Well, I gotta say, I think this was a massive success. Everyone give a big hand to the Vice President for coming up with this great idea!"

She and Jon began clapping their hands, with Natsuki half-heartedly joining in.

_"Great idea" is certainly one way to put it._ Damian thought, unimpressed.

"Eheh... thanks guys." Sayori said, looking embarrased, but happy at the others attention.

"Technically, it was me who came up with the actual idea." Natsuki said, but she was smiling herself. "Not that it matters or anything. I expect a fifty-fifty cut of all profits made from it, however."

"We'll send you a check." Monika said, playing along. "I think we got a great insight into all of our individual writing styles, which we can use moving forward to challenge, and improve ourselves."

Her eyes lingered on Damian for just a fraction of a second too long when she'd said "improve." He used all of his willpower to refrain from scoffing or rolling his eyes.

He was starting to get really ticked off from everyone telling him how they hadn't liked it, while praising their own short, lackluster writing.

"I was actually very pleasantly surprised by you in particular, Jon." Monika said, smiling at him. "From what you told us yesterday, I wasn't expecting that amount of quality from you."

Oh, come on. It hadn't been _that_ good.

"Oh gee, thanks a bunch." Jon said, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly as he smiled. "My mom's a writer, so she was a big help in making it. I really couldn't have done it without her."

"How sweet." Monika said. "But still, this was your first time ever writing a poem, right? That's still very impressive."

"I suppose." He said, blushing a bit as he looked down. "I don't think it's more deserving of praise than anyone else's in here. I've been able to find a few flaws in it."

"Trust me, it's miles ahead of certain other poems I've read. It might not be the most well written one, or have concepts that makes you think a lot, but it's obvious that you wrote straight from the heart, and that's what's important when writing." Natsuki said, shooting a sideways glance at Damian.

_Irritating little minx._

"Wow, thanks Natsuki. That... really means a lot." Jon said, looking surprised at the sincerity from the short girl, who merely smiled back in response.

"We're our own worst critics, Jon." Monika said kindly. "We'll always see flaws in our works, and they'll seem huge and gamebreaking, but the truth is that nobody will care about them as much as you. Nothing's going to be perfect, so we shouldn't strive to be it."

Her words didn't really sound genuine to Damian, seeing as he'd been the one to think his poem was flawless, and they the ones who'd critiqued it unfairly.

"To me, it was perfect!" Sayori exclaimed, throwing her arms around Jon's shoulders enthusiastically. Jon blushed at the sudden contact. "It was sooo good! I really, really enjoyed it!"

"I- I can tell, thanks!" Jon said, stammering a bit as he politely slid away from the girl's grasp.

"I'm serious!" She said, smiling widely. "I'd go so far as to say it's the best poem I've ever read! I know this wasn't a contest or anything, but that poem deserves a medal! It was so, so-"

She stopped midsentence, as though something had caught in her throat. Her smile disappeared from her face, and it seemed like a light went out in her eyes, as the normally sparkling blue colour somehow turned into a slightly duller hue.

She was staring dead ahead, a strangely somber expression on her face, as if she was seeing something no one else could, something... unpleasant.

"Uh, Sayori?" Jon asked, worry in his eyes as she looked at Sayori with concern. "You okay?"

She shook her head, snapping out of her trance.

"Y-yeah." She said, looking confused, before she gave another smile, although it wasn't quite as wide as her usual ones, and her eyes still looked weirdly faded. "Sorry about that, I don't know what that was. I-I'm sure it was nothing though, don't worry about me."

"Maybe you should sit down?" Jon asked, still looking worried at her.

"Yeah." Sayori said, sounding a bit shaky as she slowly moved towards one of the desks in the room. "Yeah, I think I'm gonna do that."

"Excuse me." Monika spoke up, hurrying past Damian, brushing her arm against his shoulder a bit. Something about her voice made him look behind after her, and he saw that she was looking a lot paler than she'd done a few seconds ago, her own smile having vanished.

"Hey, where are you going?" Natsuki yelled after her.

"Bathroom." Monika simply said, still in that weird tone of voice, as she opened the door to the hallway, and exited through it.

"And thus, our brave leader has abandoned us without further notice." Natsuki deadpanned. "Witness her astounding responsibility, oozing from every action she takes!"

"Uh, so what happens now?" Jon asked, looking between Natsuki and Damian, Sayori having left the group, sitting at a desk a bit behind them, looking out of one of the windows, her face hidden from view.

"Heck if I know." Natsuki shrugged, before a mischievous smile spread across her face. "I suppose without supervision we can talk freely about how much Damian's poem sucked!"

"Uh..." Jon began, but Damian talked over him.

"Or, we can witness as Natsuki writes the sequel to her 'Old MacDonald had a Farm' rip-off." Damian said, barely contained anger in his voice. "Here's an idea for the first verse: pink-haired midgets CAN be annoying brats!"

He didn't care about playing nice anymore. This girl had been doing her best to tick him off all day, and she wasn't even being subtle about it anymore. If she wanted a fight this badly, he was more than happy to oblige.

"Ooh, quoting my work?" She responded, smiling wider. "Too bad nothing in your three pages of gargle was memorable enough for people to do the same, huh?"

"Please." Jon said, stepping between the two. "Let's just calm down."

"I _am_ calm." Natsuki said, looking anything but. "It's just light ribbing amongst _good_ friends. You read his poem Jon, you know how laughable it was."

Damian turned his head, to glare at Jon.

"You said my poem was good, Kent."

Jon blushed, and hestitated for just a second too long.

"Oh, come on!" Damian said, frustration boiling hot in his blood. "Did _nobody_ here like my poem?"

"Uhm..."

Damian looked behind him, and identified Yuri, silently approaching, holding his poem. She looked more than a little uncomfortable, having intruded on them arguing.

"...I uh, finished your poem." She said, smiling nervously. "It was really good. I liked it a lot."

Damian squinted at her. So, she alone of everyone else in this club had liked his poem? After everyone else had pointed out the numerous flaws in it, Yuri, of all people, could see its quality?

Unlikely.

"Oh, you did?" He said, sarcasm dripping from every syllable, as he reached up and snatched the papers from her hand. "What were your favorite parts? Was it my soulless recreation of other great artists' work? Was it my lack of anything meaningful in the text? Was it my blatant incomprehension of what a poem even is? Or could you even look past my indecipherable handwriting?!"

"I- uh, I'm not..." Yuri stammered, fear in her eyes as she struggled to form a coherent sentence. Damian didn't feel sorry for her, it was clear that she was just like everyone else in here, detesting his writing and lying to his face to earn brownie points.

"Hey, don't be a dick to Yuri just because she's a good person who decided to take pity on a pretentious writer!" Natsuki piped up from behind Jon, who was still trying in vain to mediate. Her competitive smile was gone from her face now.

"I- I wasn't! I r-really did l-like it!" Yuri protested, blushing.

"I don't need any pity from a bunch of fakers like you, who wouldn't recognize true talent if it hit you in the face!" Damian snarled, having had enough of Natsuki's taunts.

"I- I'm going to go make some tea." Yuri said, in a small voice, and hurried out of the door to the hallway. She had a strangely forced smile on her face as she left, and the pupils in her purple eyes had shrunk in size, giving her a slightly deranged look.

The door slammed behind her.

Both Jon and Natsuki turned their heads to stare harshly at Damian.

Looking into their eyes, he saw trace amounts of anger and blame dancing around like pink flames in Natsuki's, whereas Jon's emanated steely blue feelings of disappointment and shame.

Shame. Over him? She'd been the one who started everything! Why was he expected to just take all of her harassment, without firing back once? That was hardly fair, and he certainly wouldn't be judged like this.

"Damian..." Jon started, probably to give him another "Super-Lecture" or guilt-trip him by saying how he'd promised to give this Club a second chance. He wouldn't hear it. He had given it a second, third, fourth and fifth chance, and now he was done, at least for today.

_"-TT-"_ He scoffed, interrupting the half-alien. Grabbing his backpack, he walked briskly past them, out the door. He caught sight of Sayori on his way out, still sitting alone by her desk, not smiling as she watched him storm away.

He could feel the others' stares in his back as he headed out the room, and knew they would probably be talking about him once he left, but he really couldn't care less right now.

He really needed to go on patrol right now. Punching some lowlifes in the face seemed like the only thing that could relax him right now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's notes: You've probably noticed that the poem sections were a bit more awkward than the usual sections (which is saying something, yikes!)
> 
> I can't do poems. They are things that elude me, which is why I didn't even attempt to write what Jon and Damian had written. Still, poems are a big, important part of DDLC, so I needed to include them at least once, but it's very unlikely that they'll come up again.
> 
> If the sections where Damian and the rest of the characters react to the poems sounds like the author (me, hi!) talking out of their ass, it's because it 100% is.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this chapter overall. Feedback is as always appreciated, so don't hestitate to comment, even if it's just pointing out typos.


	4. Interlude II: Bathroom Bonding

Monika was panting heavily, breathing through her mouth to avoid catching the scent of the contents in the toilet bowl she was leaning over, filled up with a disgusting yellowish mess of semi-liquid, semi-chunky sludge of half-digested food items which thirty seconds prior to this had resided in her stomach.

Thinking that didn't exactly help her gag reflex however, and after retching a few times, she bent over to vomit once again.

As she felt what had been her breakfast and lunch travel upward through her body before explosively forcing its way out of her mouth, she really hoped she'd had enough self-preservation to throw her front hair strands over her shoulder before she'd let loose. She let out a few coughs, hoping that this round would be the last, as she opened up her eyes, looking into the toilet bowl. She couldn't see any of her hair hanging down, dipping itself into the bile, so that was a relief. She couldn't exactly shower at the school to wash away any clumbs of the disgusting, smelly concoction settling itself in her locks, and the very idea of walking around school, or anywhere really, with her own vomit littering her hair, touching her front shoulders, getting smeared everywhere...

She realized her mistake when she doubled over once again, and spewed out more of the stuff in response to her own careless thought about the alternative hair conditioner.

But all of this was merely a feedback loop caused by the real reason she'd retreated from her Club to go barf in the nearest school bathroom.

_She's not real. She's not real. Just a bunch of ones and zeroes. Soulless code. She's not real._

But the mental image of Sayori, face contorted in confused sadness as a result of her tampering resisted her feeble justifications stubbornly, making her feel sick once again.

She spit some remaining pieces of the bile lingering in her mouth into the toilet bowl, wincing in pain.

Throwing up would never be a pleasant experience, but her side, still littered in black marks hidden from the public eye underneath her school uniform, given to her by the kicking she'd received from Harley Quinn a week before, made the act of pushing up the vomit about ten times more painful than it otherwise would be, the cramps alone being absolute agony.

And she deserved every single bit of it.

She couldn't just sit there on her knees, waiting for the smell and sight of vomit to trigger her body again.

Her every limb shaking, from the tips of her fingers to the far ends of her toes underneath her stockings and pink-tipped white shoes, she managed to push herself upright, and with a downright herculean effort, she pressed the button above the toilet bowl, and sighed as the following mechanism sucked away the evidence she'd left in there with a roar.

Her knees wobbled dangerously a few seconds later however, and she took a tentative step back to lean her back against the thin wall of the booth she'd put herself in. Even with that, her legs soon gave out beneath her, and she felt her body slide down the wall until she found herself in a sitting position, feeling the cold contact of the public girls' bathroom floor against her bare thighs beneath her skirt.

It probably wasn't the most sanitary place she could be sitting, but she didn't think she was physically capable of getting to her feet again for the next hour. She could do nothing except sitting there in a collapsed state, desperately trying to ignore the lingering aftertaste in her mouth.

She turned her head to her left side, her tired eyes seeing a roll of toilet paper mounted on the wall next to her.

She managed to lift a trembling arm to grab hold of a tissue, ripping it off the roll with a quick movement, and bringing it up to her face to wipe away any residual drops of bile left near her lips and chin, before folding the paper up and throwing it into the toilet bowl in front of her.

It naturally had no effect on the leftover taste still in her mouth, but she had to take what she could get.

Then, she closed her eyes in exhaustion, and leaned her head back to rest against the booth wall.

While her body would be out of commission for the next while, her mind was free to speed along without stopping, reflecting on the series of actions which had led her to where she was now.

_Why on earth did I do that?_

She'd lowered Sayori's Joy Slider. Just like she'd done back in the warehouse with Harley.

Granted, it had only been a fraction of what she'd done to the villainess, the bar barely even reaching yellow. But it didn't really matter how little she'd taken of her friend's happiness, when she still couldn't understand _why_ she'd done it.

She had just been standing there, having a good time, praising Jon's poem. Perhaps she'd been a little too ecstatic about the quality of it, but that was hardly a justifiable reason for Monika to take the joy away from her, especially when she had so precious little of it to spare.

_It doesn't matter. She's not real._

She sighed, lifting her hands to rub at her temples. If it didn't matter, then why was she feeling so awful about it?

She remembered back on the first day back at school after her Awakening, as she had taken to calling her encounter with the female rogues. A bit of a dramatic name, she'd admit, but in fairness, it was a pretty dramatic event.

After having staggered home from across the city, showered away the stench of her own unwashed clothes after sitting in a damp, moist greenhouse for almost two whole days, her body had given in much like it had now, and she'd spent the rest of the Sunday trying to sleep away her hangover that had nothing to do with any hypothetical alcoholic beverages.

Maybe not the wisest of moves to go to bed that early in the afternoon, but she knew her biological clock would be absolutely wrecked no matter what she did, so might as well just destroy it further.

The next day, after having applied the necessary layers of makeup to hide the wound near her lip, once again a courtesy of the crime jester, and making sure she in general looked way more ready to tackle the day than she felt, she'd headed off to school, trying her best to ignore the Sliders present in every single person she laid her eyes on. They got progressively easier to look past after a certain time, she just had to focus on taking her notes in classes, and not get distracted by how Miss Robinson's Anger Slider visibly rose every time a student got a calculation wrong. Which was often.

After the final bell had rung, she'd pretty much just started heading straight home. She was way too tired to stay for her self-taught piano lessons, and after what happened last Friday, she was in no mood to head home any later than what was absolutely necessary. She'd heard of the expression that lightning never strikes twice, but she wasn't going to take any more risks.

She'd almost made her way out of the front doors to the building, when the now familiar voice of Sayori calling her name had stopped her on the doorway, and she'd been painfully reminded of the fact that oh yeah, she had a Club now. The Club that had been her number one priority in her mind for the past week, consuming her thoughts in every second of every day, and she'd totally forgotten all about about it. Funny, how such things slipped your mind when you were exposed to a near-death experience, followed by the shattering of your grip on this so-called reality.

She'd called over her shoulder to say that she was sorry, but she wasn't feeling well (which was perfectly true) and she didn't think she could handle going around the building to try and convince more students to join up.

And in response, Sayori had merely made her way over to her, put her hand on Monika's shoulder, and told her not to worry, because she'd handled that part already.

And that was when Monika, eyes wide in disbelief, had turned around to look into the bright blue eyes of the smiling, red bowed girl she had made Vice President of the Literature Club.

And then, she'd seen her Joy Slider.

She actually had to suppress a gasp at the time, seeing it, and the lack of green in the bar beneath the floating word. It hadn't made sense, seeing the combination of the wide smile and sparkling eyes, coupled with the Slider that was nearly as short and orange as Harley's had been after her tampering. Sayori had said something, but it fell on deaf ears as Monika kept staring at how empty the Slider appeared to be, listening only to her own speeding thoughts.

Was it a glitch? A fault in the system? Or was Sayori just actively hiding her true feelings from every one else, while she was suffering in silence?

Sayori had spoken up again, with Monika actually hearing her this time, asking if she really was feeling ill. Shaken from her thoughts of confusion regarding her friend's secret mood, she'd finally been able to pull her eyes away from the distracting word floating in midair, and actually focused on her face. Her smile had vanished, and her brows were furrowed, giving her a look of worry in her sapphire eyes. She'd said that Monika looked really pale, and told her to go home if she was feeling unwell. She'd told her that while she did have a surprise for her, she was certain it could wait until tomorrow, or whenever she was feeling better.

And her Joy had actually gone down even further as she'd said this.

She couldn't just leave her like this, her own feelings of exhaustion and weariness be damned. She had to get to the bottom of this, find out who or what was affecting her by default best friend like this, and do her best to fix it.

Even if she was just a program.

Monika had told her that it wasn't too bad, she was just a little tired after a bit of a hectic weekend. She'd apologized for forgetting about the Club, and said that she wanted nothing more than to see the surprise Sayori had prepared for her.

Sayori had asked if she was completely sure she could handle it, and Monika had assured her she was. Sayori had smiled, and told her to follow along with her.

And her Joy had remained unmoving.

As Sayori led her up the stairs to the top floor which held the room they'd gotten permission from the principal to set up their Club within for the time being, until the two weeks had passed. Monika only half-listened and responded in single word replies to the girl's pleasant attempts at smalltalk on the way, her focus having gone back to that Joy Slider. She was quite sure that if she didn't have this unique insight into every one's emotional state, she'd be none the wiser of Sayori's happiness, and just went on, assuming naturally that her words and tone of cheerful happiness was just as genuine as they sounded.

But that little, dark orange bar underneath the three-letter word made her analyze everything she was saying, re-contextualizing each word, as if she was trying to find the meaning of a particularly abstract poem. There were other things wrong with her Sliders than just her Joy. Sadness looked to be a whole lot greener than it had any right to be, and the same could be said for her Fear. She considered briefly opening up some of the folders, to see if there were any individuals she felt particularly bad about, but quickly shut down that idea. It would be way too much of a privacy breach. Just seeing her general emotions like this was already crossing the borders, so she wasn't going to take it to the next level like she'd done to Harley and Ivy. Plus, what if she herself was the cause of the negative emotions? What should she do then? She couldn't see how on earth she could be, but still.

When they'd gotten all the way over to the room, Sayori had turned around, flashing Monika a wide smile. Monika had wondered if it was her mind playing tricks on her after she'd seen the Slider, or if she was right in her assessment that the smile didn't quite reach her eyes.

Sayori had said that like she'd told her she'd do last Friday, she'd made a few calls to some people she knew, asking if they'd like to join a Club.

Monika had been impressed by her drive, working on this passion project of hers, even in the weekend. She'd apologized for not doing anything herself, even though she knew that she hadn't really been able to.

Sayori had dismissed her apology, saying that it was nothing, and had quickly went on to say that most people had unfortunately declined.

"Buuut..." She'd said, a twinkle in her eyes, and she'd opened the door to reveal whatever it was she wanted to surprise Monika with.

Two girls, a tall one with long, purple hair sitting at a desk by a window, already reading an open book, and a small girl with short, red-ribboned pink hair, standing up with her arms crossed, leaned up against a wall.

Both of them had turned their heads towards Monika and Sayori, their attention having been grabbed by the slight creaking of the door. The short girl had an inquisitive look of skepticism on her face, as if she was silently judging everything about them, and the tall girl a look of nervousness, evidenced by her blushing face.

Yuri and Natsuki.

Sayori had introduced them to her, her eyes swelling with pride at having completed the task she'd pretty much assigned to herself, as she'd descriped every minute detail in how she knew the girls, and how she'd recruited them for the Club, with Monika looking on with wide eyes. She'd probably be over the moon in excitement herself, overjoyed in having already found two of the three required members to make their Club official, if it hadn't been for the hard to ignore issues of her own overwhelming exhaustion which just seemed to make everything bleaker around her, causing her motivation to skydive.

Which wasn't helped along by the fact that by looking at the ever-present Sliders on the girls, even discounting the mystery of Sayori's missing Joy, she could see that the new arrivals were anything but happy to be here.

Natsuki had been as brash and forward as Monika now knew she always was, telling her upfront that Sayori was one of the few people she considered herself friends with at this school. She'd been looking for a Club to join for a while now, to have something she could spend her time on after school, but every available club at school had been filled up with who she called "idiots", which this Club couldn't have by default, looking at the few members. She'd added that the concept of sitting around, not doing anything except reading manga, was also inherently appealing to her.

Monika had told her that while reading would certainly be a primary focus, they would probably expand their activities a bit more as they went along and got a bit more of a foothold with the Club, to which Natsuki had shrugged, saying that she'd promised Sayori to stick around for at least a few weeks, and if the Club had evolved into something she didn't appreciate by then, she'd just quit. A bit taken aback by this, Monika had thanked her for her honesty, and told her that she hoped she would like it here.

Yuri's reasons for having joined were very similar to Natsuki's, but in a different way. Much like her pinkhaired counterpart, Yuri shared a friendship with Sayori, whom Monika was starting to suspect was friends with every one at school, which just made it all the more weirder to see those damn Sliders on her.

Yuri seemed pretty straightforward, in comparison. Monika thought that even without the Sliders, she would be able to tell that the girl was extremely shy, and judging from her tendency to stammer through her sentences, hide her face from view with her hair, and her unwillingness to make eye contact when spoken to, it was probably safe to say that she suffered from an unhealthy amount of social awkwardness and maybe even anxiety.

It took a while, but eventually the taller girl managed to tell Monika that she really liked reading, so already the Club appealed to her, but the biggest reason she'd joined was because all the other Clubs had so many members, and she much preferred being in smaller crowds.

While Monika was overcome with gratitude towards Sayori for having brought these girls, she couldn't help but notice that both seemed to be against expanding the Club to more members, which was... less than ideal, for her initial future plans for it, but she decided to look past it. She'd focus on keeping the Club running for now, and she still needed to find one more member to complete that goal. After that, she could worry about where she'd take it from there.

If it even mattered.

After the introductions had been made, and every one was clear on when and where the meetings would be held, Monika had decided on cutting this first meeting short, making the excuse that they should be taking things slow here at the start of this, so as to not overwhelm the new members, which she had to admit wasn't the worst as far as excuses went. She could even see herself making that decision if she hadn't had a hidden agenda on her mind:

Talking to Sayori, and try to figure this whole Slider thing out.

The red bowed girl had been thanking Yuri for coming, wishing her a good day as the shy girl had exited the room, giving a brief and quiet "thank you" in response. Natsuki had motioned to leave as well, but Sayori had stopped her half-way, and asked her if she could do them a favor.

Natsuki had raised a suspicious eyebrow, and asked what she wanted. Sayori had asked if it would be possible for her to bake and bring some cupcakes some of these days, to help make the Club seem more appealing to newcomers.

Natsuki had groaned, annoyed at the prospect of having to do something more than just sit around reading all day, but it seemed she couldn't keep up her tough facade with a smiling Sayori right in front of her, staring expectantly. Few could.

Natsuki had sighed, saying she'd see what she could do, but only because it was Sayori asking. If anyone else had, she would have told them to buzz off. Sayori had thrown her arms around the shorter girl in response, embracing her even as the baking enthusiast loudly protested this surprise hug.

And then, after having struggled out of Sayori's grasp, Natsuki had walked away as well. It had just been Monika and Sayori in the room by then.

Monika had wondered how she should approach this issue. She couldn't exactly say that "hey, so last weekend I got kidnapped by two supervillains which caused me to be able to see into every one's emotional stats, and yours tell me that you're actually pretty down. What gives?" but before she could think of a way to phrase her inquiry in a way that wouldn't make her seem like a lunatic, Sayori had turned around, smiled at her, and asked what she'd thought of them.

It had taken Monika a few seconds to realize Sayori was talking about the members she'd found. She'd said that they had seemed like interesting people, and she looked forward to getting to know them better, and once again, she thanked Sayori for finding and convincing them, with Sayori responding that it was the least she could do. She'd then wished Monika a speedy recovery, hoping she'd feel better tomorrow, and had turned to leave the room as well.

It had been then, or never.

Monika had called after her, asking her to wait. Sayori had turned around, asking what was up. After taking a deep breath, gathering up her courage, Monika asked if Sayori was okay.

She hadn't understood, or maybe she had played dumb, saying she didn't understand what Monika meant. Monika had pressed on, saying that if she had problems, she could talk to her about them. Sayori had looked very uncomfortable, and her smile had seemed faker than ever, as she'd said that of course she was fine, why wouldn't she be, you're being silly Monika.

Monika hadn't known how to proceed. She didn't really have any friends, so she didn't have any idea how to talk about these things. She could see that Sayori was obviously lying to her about her feelings, she watched as her Fear Slider rose, a clear indicator that she was afraid of Monika digging into this topic.

She'd backed off, saying that okay, if Sayori was absolutely sure everything was fine, that was all Monika needed to hear. If she just promised to tell her if anything was ever troubling her.

She hadn't been sure even back then if it was the right move to make. She didn't have any experience with this type of thing before, and didn't know if she should have pushed the girl further, or if she shouldn't even have brought it up in the first place. Maybe she would have given Sayori her phone number, if she still had one.

That damn clown.

Sayori had then said that she appreciated the offer, but there really wasn't any need to worry about her. Even if she was sad, which she assured Monika that she wasn't, every one got sad from time to time. Every one had days where the sky seemed full of rainclouds, especially here in Gotham. It was a perfectly normal thing, that happened to absolutely every one.

Monika had looked at her Joy Slider, seeing how close it was to red. She wasn't an expert on feelings by any means, but even she could tell that it was far from being normal.

And then, in that moment, she'd decided to take action.

She didn't know why Sayori wouldn't tell her the truth. Maybe she was ashamed of her feelings, for some weird self-perceived reason that only existed in her head. Maybe she'd gone down a similar road before, been disappointed by the end result, and had vowed never to go down that path again. Or maybe, she literally couldn't talk about it, prevented by the rules of her programming, being a part of this fake world that Monika was starting to think she liked less and less.

Whatever the reason, Monika had decided she couldn't let her friend keep living in this misery, when she had the powers to do something about it, programming, rules and code be damned.

She'd raised Sayori's Joy Slider.

Just a bit. It hardly even changed hue, and could barely be seen going up. She wasn't aiming for any dramatic, spur-of-the-moment changes in personality, since that would just mean a splitting headache, for both her and Sayori, and she didn't want her to start giggling uncontrollaby either. She doubted this tiny level of manipulation would even be registered as anything except maybe a slight pick-me-up of good vibes in her subconscious, and at worst the resulting pain in her head would be comparable to a small love-tap on the forehead. It wouldn't solve anything, especially since she knew the effects of her tampering wasn't permanent, but it wouldn't worsen the situation either.

And she hadn't been planning to stop there.

Throughout the week, she had taken it upon herself to lightly raise Sayori's Joy, just a little by each day. She'd do it whenever she'd seen her laugh at one of Natsuki's jokes, or when Yuri had opened up a bit to tell her about her poems. Whenever she'd seemed happy, Monika would glance in her direction, and raise her happiness like a guardian angel of sorts, hoping that by doing this, maybe her feelings would recognize that those situations should actually bring her real Joy, and would start supplying the emotions themselves, without Monika helping them along.

And it had seemed to be working. Sayori would behave like she always would anyway, but her smiles had begun appearing a bit wider and more genuine, her eyes, blue as the sky itself, would twinkle more. She'd still be working hard to make sure every one around her were as happy as they could possibly be, but she'd begun to also talk about herself some more, indulging herself in the form of sharing fun stories from her own life, her personal interests and all the stuff she had kept quiet about before. It was almost as if she had been thinking that nobody would be interested in her as a person, so she'd kept her focus and effort on the happiness of others, leaving none for herself.

As a result however, she had started a tendency to overshare a bit about her personal life, and rambling on about stories that more often than not lost their point entirely by the end if they ever even had one to begin with, and it sometimes seemed as if she was talking just for the sake of talking. And even if the changes Monika made to her Sliders throughout the days were small, they stacked up, and Sayori had begun experiencing head pains from the tampering.

But those issues were perfectly acceptable, and fairly insignificant to Monika, in comparison to the good it did. She would gladly listen to a thousand of Sayori's tales, and give her all the spare aspirin she could offer, as long as it meant her happiness was ensured.

Which just made it all the more strange why she had decided to lower it today.

A loud bang from outside her booth startled Monika out of her thoughts, making her sit up in attention. It had come from across the room, and a more gentle noise of impact informed her that the loud bang had been from the door to the girls bathroom being harshly opened, and then closed by itself again.

Someone else had entered the room.

She froze in her position on the floor, eyes wide as she tried to listen for the sounds of whoever had entered, which proved difficult as the pounding of her own heartbeat had reached levels that nearly deafened everything else around her.

She'd remembered to lock her booth, right? She really couldn't be seen like this, collapsed on the bathroom floor, pathetic, sick, _weak._

She tilted her head upward, careful not to brush against anything noisemaking to alert the newcomer to her presence, and saw the lock on the booth door, and the colour signifier above it.

_Red. Locked._

She closed her eyes, releasing a sigh of relief as quietly as she could, and started listening for the opening of a booth door, which would signal a moment where Monika could sneak out of the bathroom unnoticed while the stranger finished her business in here.

But no such sounds came.

Instead, she heard a faint rustling, muffled sounds of items being shuffled around, and her best guess was that the person was rummaging through a bag or purse of some kind. Was it a girl looking to fix her makeup?

She cursed inwardly, those kind of girls could easily spend up to twenty minutes on doing that, which would leave her trapped in here until then.

But then she heard something she wasn't expecting.

A sharp intake of breath.

Drawn out exhaling.

Heavy breathing, shaking slightly.

The sounds of something wet, dripping against a surface.

Monika furrowed her brows, confused. Just what the hell was she doing out there, whoever she was?

The heavy breathing continued, as did the sounds of droplets against the floor, and Monika's confusion grew bigger as she racked her brain for things a person could do that would make those noises.

One thing came to her mind, and indignation arose inside of her.

She wasn't doing anything _indecent_ out there, was she?

The heavy breathing continued, and Monika got to her feet, gathering up her courage as she grabbed the small knob by the door handle, slowly turning it to avoid any unwarranted noises to alert the stranger. If she really was doing what she thought she was doing, she had to put a stop to it, her appearance be damned. That wasn't the sort of thing you did at a public school, and certainly not without having the decency to at least enter a booth and lock the door first.

She slowly opened the door, peeking out of the opening to spot whoever was out there.

She saw a female student, evidenced by the uniform she was wearing, standing over a sink, with her back to Monika, not having heard or noticed anything, continuing breathing heavily as the dripping sounds continued. She was slightly taller than the average student, and she could see a mane of long, purple hair going all the way down to her skirt.

The Sliders were softly floating around her, with Shame, Fear and Disgust being the top contenders for the greenest bars.

Monika raised her eyebrows as she recognized the girl.

"Yuri?" She asked, without thinking.

The girl flinched at Monika's voice, her Surprise Slider skyrocketing, and she snapped her head back to identify the source of the voice. Monika had been right about the identity of the girl (not many people here had purple hair after all) but the shy girl's face had twisted into something hardly recognizable. Her skin was deathly pale, like that of a corpse, her irises were tiny pinpricks of purple in her eyes, and her face's expression showed a level of horrified terror that Monika had never seen before in her life, not even in the scariest horror movies.

Monika could actually feel herself becoming scared as she looked into her face, as if Yuri's own fear was leaking into her.

"Yuri, w-what's going on here?" She spoke again without thinking, desperate to fill the silence with something tangible she could grab onto, to make some sense of this situation, even if she knew already that she wouldn't like the answer.

A sharp clanging startled them both, making them flinch as the impact of an object landing on the floor echoed throughout the bathroom. Monika's eyes darted down to identify the source of the noise, and found...

A knife.

It wasn't that big, but it wasn't a pocket knife either. More like a blade used for cutting herbs and vegetables, its shaft dark and black, able to fit snugly in the palm of a hand, and a blade of shining silver, looking so sharp you might be able to cut yourself just by looking at it.

But the blade wasn't completely silver, as Monika could see when she looked closer, focusing on the cutting utensil.

There was a few droplets of red staining it.

Monika's eyes widened, and she looked back towards Yuri, who'd repositioned her body so that her back was no longer turned.

And Monika saw her arms, the sleeves of her uniform pulled up past her elbows.

Her mouth opened as a soundless gasp escaped her lips, her eyes sending the information of what she was seeing to a brain that refused to accept it.

Long lines of red were littered across Yuri's arms, intersecting each other, some long, some short. Most of them were faded, just a faint line of pink barely visible, while others had barely even healed, ugly scabs traveling across the pale skin. And then there were two thick lines, one on each arm, so bright, red and shiny that they could only have been made seconds ago, streams of blood traveling down the sides of the wide cuts until gravity made the liquid depart from her skin entirely, dripping against the white surface of the bathroom floor.

It was so silent that Monika could actually hear the impact of the droplets. It was a horrible sight already, but the sounds actually made it worse, and she felt as if she would go mad if she kept listening to it. She could feel her stomach churning uncomfortably again, and was sure that if she hadn't just emptied her stomach in the toilet bowl already, she would start puking all over the place again.

There had to be at least ten cuts on each arm. It was hard to tell where one began and one ended, with the blood flowing everywhere.

"Yuri..." She started, but her throat was so dry that her voice came out as a hoarse rattle, and she found herself unable to speak further.

"Don't tell Damian." Yuri said, in a shaky voice, so miniscule that it was barely audible.

Monika swallowed, trying to lubricate her throat.

"Yuri... what have you-" She began, raising her hand to reach out to her friend.

"Don't touch me!" Yuri shrieked hysterically, the sudden burst of volume in her voice startling Monika, making her recoil. Yuri's face had twisted into something resembling an angry sneer, looking completely uncharacteristic on her features which were usually a mixture of kindness and nerves.

Almost immediately Yuri's face softened, the sneer disappearing as she looked at Monika's own frightful expression.

"I-I'm s-sorry." She said, her familiar stammering returning into her voice again, and Monika saw tears beginning to form in the corners of her purple eyes.

She fumbled at her sleeves with shaking fingers, and managed to pull them down over the cuts, hiding them from sight. She looked almost completely normal now, the same Yuri as the one Monika had known for a little over a week, the same kind, smart, easily flustered Yuri. If Monika hadn't seen what were under those sleeves seconds ago, she wouldn't have thought anything was out of the ordinary.

"I d-didn't m-mean to y-yell... I-I just... C-can't th-think straight..." Yuri said, and her voice broke as tears streamed down her eyes, past her cheeks.

"It's- it's okay." Monika said, breathlessly, still in shock over the sight of her arms and her out-of-nowhere outburst.

She'd been unsure of what to say to Sayori upon discovering her hidden feelings, but this was something else entirely.

"I- I j-just get str-stressed sometimes." Yuri said, wiping uselessly at her eyes as she sobbed. "I f-feel like I c-can't breathe when... and... it h-helps... c-calms me... know it's b-bad but... but..."

"Shhh." Monika said, and chanced approaching Yuri again, hestitantly putting her arms around her, like Sayori would. She was really bad at comforting people, but every one liked hugs, right?

She could feel the quickened pace of Yuri's breathing against her body, feel her heart pounding almost as fast as her own.

"P-promise you w-won't tell anyone?" Yuri said, against Monika's shoulder.

"I- I promise." Monika said, thinking that this was one of the last things she wanted to talk to anyone about. She didn't even want to think about it. Still, she was supposed to be a responsible president of a club, so she couldn't just ignore it and pretend like nothing had happened.

"D-do you want to talk about it?" Monika asked, breaking the hug to look into Yuri's eyes, which were blurry from all the tears. The Sliders danced around her face, and she caught words like Regret, Fear and Sadness.

"I- I..." Yuri tried, voice breaking again. "So-sorry. Can't... N-need... gather m-my thoughts..."

"Of course." Monika said, nodding. "Take all the time you need. I'll be here when you're ready."

"Th-thank you, Monika." Yuri said, and sat down on the floor against a wall, raising her legs to her chest and threw her arms around them to keep them there as she lowered her face into her knees, like a child shutting herself out from the outside world. "Y-you're a g-good friend."

_Am I though?_ She thought, thinking back to Sayori. She was pretty sure a good friend wouldn't lower someone's happiness just for talking to a boy.

"Are- are you sure you're okay?" She asked, despite her better judgment. "Those... _wounds..._ they didn't exactly look shallow."

"I-it's f-fine." Yuri muttered, voice muffled as she spoke against her knees. "I c- I cla- I clear-" She released a groan, frustrated with herself for tripping over her words, and curled her hand into a fist to fiercely hit her own forehead, multiple times in rapid succession.

"O-okay, okay, I get it!" Monika said hurriedly, panicking slightly at seeing the purplehaired girl hurting herself even more. "You clean them. It's okay. I'll shut up now and let you gather your thoughts."

Yuri lowered her hand, putting it around her right leg again, hugging herself tighter, as half-choked sobs could be heard.

Monika stood there awkwardly, observing the rapid raising and lowering of Yuri's shoulders indicating that she were still silently crying, as she struggled to take in the information of what she'd just witnessed.

Had... had she been the reason for this?

It hadn't just been Sayori she'd "helped" for this past week. She'd been her primary focus, and the one she'd used most of her energy on, but a quick look at the girls she'd brought to the Club had told her that she wasn't the only one in need of help.

Yuri had been close to being a nervous wreck, terrified of speaking to other people, terrified of any sort of social interaction, really. Obsessed with what people thought about her, and almost no confidence in herself, Monika could tell that in most instances, the tall girl just wanted to disappear, to dig herself a hole she could stay in, cover up the entrances, and stay away from every one else, forever.

Over the past week, she'd made a bunch of subtle changes to her Sliders, such as rasing her Confidence, lowering her Fear and just in general made her more comfortable being with other people. The changes might not have been as noticable as Sayori's regained happiness, but that was completely intentional. After all, there was nothing wrong with being a little shy and nervous, she'd just given her a few nudges so she could function better, both in the Club and society.

And it had worked. Yuri had begun being more assertive. She could actually go a few rounds arguing with Natsuki, without giving up midsentence, as evidenced earlier today with their Batman versus Superman debate. She had approached Damian herself, without anyone telling her, and although he'd had to help it along himself a bit, they'd been reading together. There was no question that she was way more assertive now than last week.

She'd wanted to help Natsuki too, as obviously there was _something_ bothering her, but since she could only read emotions and not thoughts, and because of her own refusal to peek into other people's folders to see what their relationships with people were like, she hadn't been able to put her finger on exactly _what_ to change, so she'd tried to get Natsuki to invite her to her home, as a way for them to get closer to each other, and so she could learn more about her.

Not that it had been succesful, of course, with the shorter girl's highly mistrustful attitude towards every one who wasn't Sayori.

Had it been her tampering that had inadvertantly caused the girl currently crying a few feet in front of her on a bathroom floor to cut her arms open? Had she, in trying to help her friends mentally actually made one of them hurt themselves physically?

_No._

She dismissed the thought. She'd seen Yuri's arms, noted the coloration on some of those scars. That kind of healing didn't happen over just a week. Whatever had caused Yuri to do this to herself, it had happened months ago, at the very least. Way before Monika had ever even heard of her, and most certainly before she'd begun seeing the Sliders.

She wasn't to blame for this.

Still, it was certainly a weird coincidence.

Yuri, the softspoken, kindnatured girl who couldn't even get past a sentence without stammering... A cutter?

It was as out of left field, as completely unbelievable and unexpected as Sayori's depression had been. And both of these girls were a part of her Club?

_Just what kind of game is this?_

Ever since she'd been a kid, Monika had thought that there was something... weird, about other people. The way they moved, the way they acted, the way they talked, whatever they did, it had always seemed oddly stilted to her. It didn't matter if it was a random stranger she'd only seen once on the street one day, or her own parents. Every one did it in some form or another.

It could be a weird word used in a sentence that didn't make complete sense, or a movement that seemed out of touch with the rest of their surroundings, or just something that made them seem a bit less... _Real,_ than everything else around them.

It wasn't like it had really bothered her in any way really. Just something mildly interesting she'd noticed one day, and she had never found anything to disprove her theory.

Upon voicing these observations to her family however, she'd been met with worried glances, followed by multiple sessions with a number of different therapists, until finally she'd gotten an official diagnosis from a licensed Doctor, and had been prescribed some special pills she needed to take every other day or so, which had made the thoughts less intrusive. She'd been able to go for weeks, even months without questioning people's place in reality after she'd gotten into the rythm of taking them.

She'd never really mentioned this to anyone, after getting discouraged by her mother, who'd told her that people didn't bring those things up in conversations, and neither should she, which had seemed about right, so she'd continued taking her pills in silence, and it had been a perfectly working system for years.

Right up until last Friday, where the alarm signaling she should take the medicine, along with the rest of her phone, had been obliterated, smashed to pieces.

Of course, no longer having an alarm to remind her to take her pills wasn't the only reason for why she'd stopped taking them, although she'd have to admit it was relaxing to not get interrupted by that annoying blare every other day anymore.

No, the real reason she'd stopped taking the pills was because she'd finally gotten conclusive proof that she'd been right all along in her belief that no one was real after her Awakening.

The Doctors could explain away all they wanted with their pre-recorded dialogues and half-baked justifications, but when you could literally see the character stats floating around every one and adjust them to your heart's content, you didn't really need to take their meds, which were probably just a way for them to control rogue AI's or something like that. She wasn't really sure, since she wasn't an expert on coding. Plus, the pills had a side effect on her which made her sleepy, and in these days where she barely got enough sleep already because of her responsibilities, she didn't need to make it worse by taking some pills, that would only serve to suppress a truth she really didn't have that much of a problem with.

Still, the game aspect was something she hadn't expected. She couldn't say she'd given it that much thought per se, but whenever she had, she'd always imagined the world to be an incredibly large book, with every one being characters that some author was writing on the fly. But character stats? Sliders? Yeah, there was no way this wasn't a videogame. She'd prefer it to be a book for sure, but you had to use the cards you were dealt, and it wasn't like she disliked games.

She'd dabbled in video games, back when she didn't have more important things to use her free time on. She'd never really mentioned this to anyone either, because you just didn't go and brag to people about how many hours you'd put into games like Red Dead or Overwatch.

She was actually surprised more people hadn't realized the true nature of the world already. Even discounting her unique observations about people's mannerisms, there were people, hundreds, maybe even thousands of them, grown men and women even, dressing up in colourful tights, flying around the sky, shooting laserbeams from their eyes and punching each other. It was ridiculous to even think those types of things could happen in the real world.

Maybe it was just because of their programming, the code making up their minds preventing them from seeing the obvious.

_But it's not like I can look down on every one else for being NPC's._ She thought, and sighed, turning her head to the side, seeing her reflection in the mirror.

She looked a little pale, though not on the same level as Yuri when she'd been caught, and her hair was a bit fuzzier than she'd like, but at least it wasn't covered in puke like she'd feared in the booth. But that was hardly the most noticable things she could see.

Sliders.

The very same words and bars that she could see on every one around her, dancing and floating around her own body, the only differences being that the words were mirrored, which made them a bit more difficult to decipher, and the bars underneath, normally going left to right in how strong an emotion was, were now going from right to left, although the colour schemes remained the same. She could see her Surprise Slider getting a bit more yellow as the shock of seeing Yuri wore off. See her Joy had gone down too, as a result of what she'd done to find herself here, and the prospect of the conversation awaiting her between her and Yuri.

_No, I really can't judge anyone for being NPC's, seeing as I am one of them myself._

She'd been so scared at first, seeing them for the first time in the reflection of that closed shop window last Sunday. She'd refused to even think about them or what they meant, and had even taken down the bathroom mirror and turned it around when she'd stepped in to shower before taking a nap. She just couldn't deal with that stuff after everything she'd just gone through.

After getting some hours rest in her own bed and having found something to eat in her own kitchen that wasn't plant-based in the slightest. However, she'd taken one of her handmirrors from her drawer, and looked at herself. Her logic behind it being that she wouldn't be able to see many of the Sliders in a mirror that small, and then maybe she wouldn't be as overwhelmed.

She'd still spent what must have been at least an hour, sitting on her bed and just staring into the reflective glass surface, not knowing what she was supposed to think everytime a Slider floated across her face, showing how much of an emotion she was feeling at that moment.

She'd known ever since she'd bumped into that prostitute on the street that the world was nothing but a videogame, her belief of other people being fake having been cemented in that moment, but for some reason it had never crossed her mind that she would be one of them too. Had that been arrogant of her to assume? Maybe.

She'd wondered about what had caused her to see the truth like this, since she was pretty sure she shouldn't be able to. Was it one of the programmers, giving an AI self-awareness to see what it'd do for a laugh? Was she malfunctioning? Or was it just a glitch in the system, a mistake that had never been intended, but had happened anyway?

In truth, it didn't really matter how she'd Awakened. The question had been what to do with it now that she had.

What kind of videogame was this, and what was her purpose in it?

Those questions had plagued her for hours on end, the idea that everything about her was preprogrammed towards a path that she no longer knew, and her knowing that all the things she'd done to stand out before this had been for nothing. The piano lessons? Worthless. The Literature Club? Didn't matter. Her one and only friend, Sayori? Fake.

Maybe she had been supposed to die in that warehouse with the supervillains. To serve as a death to further motivate a hero in this game's story or something like that, but instead she'd broken the code and lived when she wasn't supposed to? Was the whole game, as a result of that, broken as well? Where did anything go from here on out?

The questions were enough to drive someone mad, so she'd decided to try not to dwell on them and go about her day as best she could, knowing what she knew about the world.

And she'd managed to find something of a purpose. It probably wasn't what had been intended for her, and she was certain she definitely wasn't supposed to do it, but she'd taken a lesson from Sayori's book, and tried to make every one around her a little happier than they otherwise would be, using the Sliders for good. She had a slight fear that maybe one day a programmer would see the changes she was making to the game's characters, and straight up delete her, but maybe they were such insignificantly small aspects of the game, like background characters, that no one would notice they were acting strangely.

Or maybe they just didn't care. It was another valid theory, surely, if a background character could gain this level of power to change the very code of the game itself, you'd think someone would do something to fix it. She didn't know, how could she possibly know? She just had to do what felt right for her, until she could make more sense of the situation. Until then, she'd focus on making the Literature Club the happiest place she possibly could.

And then _they_ had showed up, throwing a wrench into everything.

Jon, and Damian.

When Sayori had mentioned to her and Natsuki yesterday that she'd found two potential new members earlier in the day, she'd been overjoyed, and maybe a little guilt-stricken. By all means, Sayori had now gotten more than enough things for the Club than she ever had, at least on the outside, finding these members and socializing with them. In her defense, Monika had spent a lot of her time on getting headaches in the Club to try and improve their Sliders, but she couldn't exactly say that, and in her mind, it might only be a question of time before someone like Natsuki would ask why Sayori wasn't the main President of the Literature Club when it was her doing all the work.

But nevermind that.

She, like the pinkhaired baker, hadn't expected Sayori's members to be two darkhaired young boys, but their gender had been the least of her concerns when she'd laid eyes on them.

They didn't have Sliders.

There were no words floating around their bodies, no bars measuring their emotions. They were just... normal.

Which alone made them the two single most special people at this school, if not the whole world.

It had been so refreshing to look at them, and have to guess what they were feeling at any given moment, now that she couldn't rely on floating words to tell her everything she needed to know about their emotional status. She'd actually caught herself spacing out when looking at them, forgetting about whatever she'd been doing before, and instead just watching them idly as they sat around talking to the other girls, getting lost in how natural their movements appeared without the words dancing around them.

When every one around her had the damn Sliders surrounding them, even watching the two boys read could be interesting, almost even relaxing. Like they were the only beings that made sense in this nonsensical, crazy world of exposed character stats and costumed super-people.

And then, she'd figured out what they were. It was laughably obvious really, the only thing they could be that made any sense at all.

If they didn't have the Sliders, it meant they hadn't been programmed with them.

If they hadn't been programmed with them, it meant they weren't part of the game.

And if they weren't a part of the game, that meant the only possible thing left for them to be was...

The Players.

The ones who'd bought this game, the ones who the entire world actually revolved around. Nobody really mattered in this world except for them, since they were real, and everybody else, including her... wasn't.

And she thought she was starting to get a pretty good idea on what type of game this was, too.

She wasn't blind. She noticed things. Things like how Sayori had instantly rushed Jon upon first entering the room yesterday. How Yuri had fawned over Damian's choice of reading material. How both girls had read their books at the reading session today with each of the boys.

It couldn't be denied that these boys were getting on remarkably well with Yuri and Sayori, and very fast, too. Too well. And too fast.

Like, fair enough, it might have something to do with her own tampering. Raising Sayori's Joy, it made sense that she'd be more open and outwards towards Jon, and it made sense that Yuri would be a bit more confident, and get closer to the guy who shared the same interests as her.

But it was still going way too fast to even be remotely realistic for her. She didn't have any problems with her own Joy and Shyness, something that was clearly evidenced by the Sliders around her, and she couldn't imagine herself getting into a relationship this quickly.

And that's what she fully believed they were getting at. Relationships. Dating.

It was so obvious when you looked at the facts. Two attractive boys, joining a school Club containing three decently attractive young girls with their own unique, quirky personalities. The way that both of them had said the right things exactly to get the girls interested in them, as if they'd picked dialogue options specifically designed for each of the girls.

This game was a Dating Simulator.

If she was kind of embarrased at having spent hours on games like Terraria and The Sims, then she was downright ashamed of even knowing about the Dating Sim genre, and would never admit to having touched one if she were ever asked, unless she wanted to completely commit social suicide. Playing them really was the peak of loneliness, the games all having slight variations of the exact same concept:

A guy or a girl (most times a guy) in a setting as the point of view character, usually a self insert for the person playing the game. The setting would then have a multitude of different guys or girls (mostly girls) wich the Player had to choose between using the correct dialogue options, and then after a few events as their "relationship" between each other grew, you'd finally reach the end of the game when the guy or girl and your own character became a couple, got married, or... _other things,_ depending on the game's age rating.

Dating Sims were what Monika considered the junk food of the video game genres. Very basic and often lazy plots, repeated endlessly. The gameplay, if you could even call it that, were with very little variation just clicking to progress a number of dialogue boxes, since most of them didn't even have voice acting. Playing these games were often more akin to reading books with pictures a lot of the time, thus earning their alternative name: Visual Novels.

But as an enthusiast of the literary arts, she'd noticed that most of these games had very... _lackluster_ writing, to say the least. To name an example, it was a mark of considerable rarity to find one of these games that didn't have any obvious typos in the dialogue boxes.

Not that she imagined the ones playing cared much about the nuances of good storytelling and writing. No, she was pretty certain the target audiences of Dating Sims were those social outcasts who didn't have the confidence or know-how to pursue a real relationship, so they sought out these games to pursue a fantasy of getting together with a girl, beautiful to the unrealistic degree, one that they could never hope to get in real life. In her mind the kind of people playing these games were the ones who'd pretty much given up on finding someone themselves.

And her, of course.

In her defense, she'd been very young when she'd started playing them. She'd found the same issues with them then as she did now, with the sorry excuse they had for a plot, cringey dialogue, and very male-gazey character designs.

Truthfully, she'd only downloaded her first Dating Sim after seeing a Let's Player on the Internet make fun of it first, and she'd thought it was hilarious, so she'd wanted to try it out so she could laugh about how ridiculous they were.

But after having spent money on one which was a bit more popular, and using about ten hours in total on romancing all the main girls in it to see their endings (because she had to 100% complete it to get her money's worth, right?) and even looking up guides on the internet to find the five hidden girls, she'd started to realize that it was a whole lot of effort to go through just to ironically make fun of a game to herself, and to her horror, she'd found that she was actually getting invested in the story and characters, remembering the names of all the girls and noting all their personality quirks in her mind.

That was when she'd uninstalled all her games in a fit of panic over the possibility that she was actually enjoying her time, and swiftly sought to culture herself with video games that actually had a decent story, before she got sucked so far into the slippery slope of Dating Sims that she'd hit rock bottom and start writing her own fanfictions about the characters.

And now, after having spent so long distancing herself from Dating Simulators, she found herself living in one. And not as the protagonist, but as one of the girls whose purpose it was to get woo'ed _by_ the protagonist, or in this case, protagonists.

She'd reached these conclusions yesterday, thinking everything over in her bed. About how everything lined up perfectly with her theory. To an outsider it might sound crazy, but... this was a crazy world. Was it really that far-fetched?

She'd thought about the girls usually found in Dating Sims, and how they were usually these two-dimensional clichés of various girl tropes, like the foxy redhead, or the bubbly blonde, or the... Catgirl... Yeah, this probably wasn't one of those types of games.

_Or the bratty, but cute one who pretends she doesn't like you at first, flinging insults at you to hide her true personality. Or the shy, but smart one whom you have to impress with your own knowledge. Or the ditzy, but lovable airhead whose positivity makes every one around her feel better._

Their purpose in the games was simple, if not a little basic: The Main Character, or "MC" would pick the girl he wanted to pursue, and then he'd go down that "Route," picking the dialogue options specific for that particular girl, until they reached their Happy Ending, where it could be assumed that the MC and her lived happily ever after, fulfilling the Player's fantasy.

She'd laid in her bed for hours, staring up at the ceiling thinking about how horrifying it was, knowing that your entire purpose in life, your only reason for existing, was to be the object of desire, a trophy for a being from another reality, your own individual goals and achievements rendered meaningless in the face of your true endgame, as the fake lover of the Player.

But what was even more scary than that, was knowing that you hadn't even been the one they'd picked.

It was pretty clear by now which Routes Jon and Damian had chosen. As if Sayori's behaviour around the cheerful boy wasn't evidence enough, she'd even overheard her mentioning texting him earlier today. She'd already given him her number. And then of course, there was the adorkable blossoming relationship between Damian and Yuri, which seemed to be moving much slower than Jon and Sayori. Maybe Jon was better at the dialogue options than his friend, or it could be possible that Sayori was just a lighter difficulty than Yuri.

_Which might have been my doing, by "helping" her._ She realized, chills traveling down her spine.

Had she even been an option for them? Maybe she was just ignoring her own flaws, but she couldn't tell which character archetype she belonged in. She was the President, the Leader of what she was sure was the game's setting, the Literature Club. Her interactions with the boys had largely consisted of introducing them to every one in it, telling them how they operated, giving Jon tips on how to write...

_Oh, god, no._ She thought, closing her eyes, and raised her hands to hide her face away, cringing at her realization.

She wasn't even one of the girls. She was the Tutorial. The annoying guide who served as an in-universe excuse to introduce the Player to the mechanics of the game. The one that the game didn't have a Route for, so you just disregarded her as the bland, irrelevant, useless character. She was even a brunette, could she get anymore plain? When she'd told them off earlier for giggling during reading time, she must have seemed like such a fun-hating nanny losing even more sympathy from the Players.

She thought back to the moment that had caused her to come into this bathroom in the first place, focusing on remembering her feelings during that moment where Sayori had praised Jon's poem. She'd felt... annoyed. Not necessarily bad, you sometimes did grow a bit irritated at your friend's behaviours from time to time, that wasn't the big deal.

But now that she thought about it, there had been another feeling at play, just below the surface, so slight that she hadn't even noticed it at the time.

Jealousy.

Jealousy at Sayori for writing a poem every one liked and understood. Jealousy at Sayori for having such an easy time making friends. Jealousy at Sayori for being cuter than her. Jealousy at Sayori for getting her Route picked by the Player, jealousy at her for getting a Happy Ending which she now realized she never even had a chance at getting in the first place!

Yes, she'd lowered her Joy Slider, as a petty attempt at revenge against someone who didn't know, who could never even realize what she was taking away from Monika. After Jon and Damian finished their Routes, what would happen to her? To the world?

They'd be having the conclusion to their story, most likely one where they'd live happily ever after, but then what? The game didn't have to keep the rest of the NPC's running after that. Would she, along with Natsuki and every one else simply cease to exist? Or would they keep on running, even as the screen turned black, forever lost in the darkness until someone restarted the game and they would go through all of this again?

A shuddering sniffle from behind her made her turn her head towards Yuri, still sitting in her position on the floor, ever so slightly getting over her crying. She didn't realize how lucky she was, being someone able to get picked by Damian, getting a guranteed Happy Ending while leaving Monika and the rest behind in the terrifying uncertainty of whatever happened afterwards. She actually found it kind of insulting, seeing her wallow around in her own misery, when her future was set. Monika didn't like the idea of a destiny set around being the girlfriend of a man, but at least it was better than not having one at all.

It wasn't fair. Nobody else in this world had any idea about the true nature of this reality, the true nature of their very existence, except for her. They had no reason at all to be frightened of not having their Routes chosen. The self-awareness Monika had gained made sure that she could look on as Sayori and Yuri got their Endings, their purpose, the things Monika could never have, and it made sure she understood that there was nothing at all she could do about it.

_Or is there?_

Monika thought back to the moment in the Club, how she'd lowered the Joy Slider, just a fraction. She thought back to the moment in the Warehouse with Harley and Ivy. She'd felt hopeless there too, thinking there was no way out, with the same indignation at how unfair everything was.

And she'd gotten out using her Sliders. She'd turned the situation around, and though she'd taken a few licks in the form of a splitting headache and side pains, everything had ultimately turned in her favor.

What's to say she couldn't do it again? Affect the other girls, not to help them, but to eliminate the competition. If there was no one else to get an Ending, then the game would be forced to write one for her. All she needed to do was to keep doing what she'd started up in the classroom, and she'd be set.

But the image of Sayori's face, staring dead ahead of herself, with that sad look in her eyes, confused about where her Joy had gone, flashed before Monika's eyes again, and she started feeling queasy for what felt like the fifth time this day, fighting to keep whatever remained in her stomach down.

It didn't matter that she wasn't real, just an NPC with preprogrammed, fake feelings in an even faker world. She was her friend. Her only friend, truth be told. And the very thought of hurting her like this, so deeply and severely, made her want to throw up again. There was no way she could go through with this plan.

_"Ya had to take her away from me, too!"_ A voice echoed in her mind, highpitched and hysterical. A memory of what Harley Quinn had yelled at her on the construction site, while doing her best to kick her ribs to pieces.

_"Ya had to make the one person who could help me through this, hate my guts!"_

Monika's eyes widened, her mind working overtime, thoughts of new possibilities flowing through her brain.

She looked back into the bathroom mirror, searching for her Compassion Slider.

It came into view, floating directly in front of her face. She'd been proud to discover how green it was at first, not quite as bright as Sayori's, but it was hardly fair to compare herself to one of the most empathetic people on the planet.

_It probably won't be as green after this._

She sighed, and gathered up her courage.

Then, she opened up her Compassion folder.

Names started popping up, flooding her view as they softly scrolled down at random, different coloured bars underneath each one. It was kind of fascinating to observe the exact level of Compassion she apparently bore for each individual in her life, from the green of her parents, to the orange of the mean lady in the pet shop who'd yelled at her for scaring the piranhas in a fish tank when she'd been four.

She shook her head. She couldn't get distracted now, and should focus on the mission she'd set for herself.

Taking a deep breath, she willed her thoughts to echo the name "Sayori" in her head, and watched as the names in the mirror fluttered past her face at rapid speed, until the reversed name of the red-bowed Vice President was floating solitarily in front of her face, its green bar as bright as they came.

Monika exhaled, scrunched her face up in determination, and started lowering her own Slider.

She felt the familiar pain in her head take place, growing stronger as she kept her eyes on the declining bar. It wasn't as intolerable as it had been back in the warehouse, since she'd built up some resistance to it after using it all of last week.

Still, considering what she'd just decided to do, chances were that her head would be hurting more than it ever had before after this, but that was fine. She could rest her head and let it heal _after_ Jon had chosen her.

Apart from the steadily growing pain, she could definitely feel something happening to her thoughts as the Slider turned from green, to yellow, to orange. It was subtle, but it was like all her idle observations on the red-bowed girl were slowly getting recontextualized, removing the rose tinted glasses and instead painting them in a more rational way.

She had felt so bad for Sayori, learning about her depression, even though she'd known the girl was just a computer program, designed to tug on your heartstrings. She might have been above her, technically, her being the President and all, but ever since starting this Club, Sayori had actually been a source of inspiration and admiration for Monika, someone she'd strived to be more like herself.

Now though? Not so much.

In truth, the optimism and encouragment that the girl gave out to every one around her was a smokescreen, a thin veil she put on in an attempt to justify all her less than stellar traits to the people around her, of which there were many.

For instance, her academic skills, or lack thereof. Did she think it was cute, the way she kept laughing at her complete failure to understand the words in the english language, and their meaning? Was it meant to be adorable when she did that stupid thing with her fingers and blushed in response to people telling her she'd used "you're" instead of "your" in her homework assignments, which she more often than not just forgot to make in the first place?

Oh, she'd say that she was "trying her best," but that was just an excuse used when people didn't want to improve themselves, because no one could call out a person for "trying their best" so it just became the default catchphrase for lazy people.

And lazy she was. She'd sleep in late to the point where school staff had to get involved to set up a system for the girl, and she would somehow still be late for class. And when she finally arrived in the class, she'd fall asleep in the middle of a lesson! She'd even seen her fall asleep in the Club, while reading a book! And not a boring math book either, but one of those fantasy novels she knew Sayori was into. How was Monika supposed to get new Club members into the idea of literature, when the Vice President herself showed every one how boring reading was to her? Considering she spent so much of her time sleeping, it sure was odd how tired she always was.

In conclusion, she was an airheaded, irresponsible, indolent class clown whose ramblings and innate giggling really weren't as cute and endearing as she thought they were. She never had anything of substance to add to any conversation, and took away attention from those who actually worked hard to achieve their goals, like Monika.

Monika was hard working, she never missed an assignment, and she was the most active member in her class, if not the whole school. She was also way smarter, funnier and prettier than Sayori, and yet it was her who had all the friends, taking them away from Monika just like she'd taken away Jon.

Sayori could have anything she could ever want, popularity, friends and even love, just by flashing that stupid smile and opening those wide eyes, and yet Monika still had to break this very reality just to make her be happy, something she deeply regretted wasting her energy on now.

The depression. It was probably the game's way of making her a likable character. The idea of a ditzy cute girl who laughed at every one and everything was like the definition of a basic, cookie cutter girlfriend, but throw in that she was actually secretly suffering, and suddenly she was a victim for the MC to save, like the hero he was, which gave Sayori the illusion of actually having depth to her, when really she was just a bit of a more unique haircolour away from being the dumb blonde in the punchline of an unfunny joke.

She could see how things would turn out if she allowed her and Jon's Route to continue. After a few dates with her, not so subtle hints of her sadness would breach her surface, which would lead Jon to grow increasingly worried about her, feeding into her victim complex, until finally he'd pull her out of her darkness for good by confessing his undying love for her, and assuring her that whatever "rainclouds" were darkening her days, he'd be there to face them with her forever, or some schmaltzy crap like that. Except it'd probably go even quicker now that Monika had already filled her up with happiness.

A mistake that had to be fixed. If the game wanted Sayori to be unhappy so much, she would be more than willing to comply, next time she saw her. Jon would have a hard time sparking the flames of her joy if she removed all traces of it. Which would lead him to abandon her as a lost cause, and go to the girl who actually deserved it, her.

Monika smiled, as she saw the remaining red line that had made up her compassion for Sayori a minute ago. The prospect of lowering her Joy Slider didn't make her feel like puking in disgust anymore. On the contrary, she was actually kind of excited to do it.

Her eyes turned to the purplehaired shape in the mirror behind her, still curled up into her fetal position, unmoving.

Monika considered her options for a moment, and then decided to open up her Compassion Folder again, this time pulling up Yuri's name.

She began lowering this Slider as well, her eye twitching a bit as the pain in her head doubled.

It might seem unnecessary, ruining two relationships instead of just Sayori's. After all, Jon seemed like a really sweet guy who deeply cared for every one around him, those glasses made him look super cute, and there was definite traits of a great author within him, whereas Damian was... Damian. She wouldn't say that she really _wanted_ to be romantically involved with either of them, but if she had to choose one of them, and she'd established that she did have to, then it was hardly a choice at all. As far as she cared, Yuri could have the spikyhaired boy.

But still, she'd be the first to admit that she didn't understand this game completely. Oh, better than any of the other NPC's for sure, but there was still so many things that could go south with this plan of hers. Jon could decide to stay with Sayori even if Monika drained away every last drop of her happiness. The Player could just straight up ragequit at having his favorite girl's character ruined, making Jon disappear. There were far too many uncertainties.

Making sure that Damian and Yuri's Route was stopped, she'd have a boy to go back to and try again if her plan with Jon didn't work out. She'd much prefer getting Jon, obviously, but as long as she got her Happy Ending, she was sure she could learn to tolerate Damian as well. But he would remain a backup plan, someone she'd only pursue if she screwed up things with Jon beyond saving.

_Like an extra Save File._

As for Yuri, she found herself growing increasingly irritated at her, sitting there in the corner, sniffling like a baby. She was just like Sayori really, an archetype of the token stammering shy girl that people found so adorable for some reason. She'd never really gotten it.

They'd always been the last girls she'd pursue in her own Dating Sims. Their plots were so predictable, starting out with the girl barely able to speak to the MC, and through a series of long, drawn out sessions of encouraging her with love and support, would she be able to get out of her shell some more, with the highlight of their Routes being when they'd laugh at one of the MC's jokes instead of just blushing awkwardly in response. They were just so boring, and their dialogue was such a pain to read through with all those dashes between letters to spell out their stuttering. Like, for God's sake, did _every_ sentence you said to her have to trigger a response that took 30 seconds longer to say than it normally should?

And Yuri was even worse. On top of all the Shy Girl tropes, she of course also had to be the "brainy" type, as if anybody played these games to be educated on the finer, more refined points of writing. Monika had actually quite liked the more artsy, deep texts of the literary world, but Yuri had a way to just make it seem so pretentious, by asking someone what they thought of it, and then lectured them for not seeing the "real" point of it. Like a fan who'd read the novel, going off on someone who'd only seen the movie, obnoxious.

Really, Yuri had no character at all beyond "shy" and "smart," and the only reason Monika could think of that would make someone subject themselves to the torture of going through her Route, was the surface level eye candy factor of getting with the girl who had the biggest breasts of the girls in the Club. Because who cares about the nonsense nerdy things she says as long as she looks hot doing it, right?

The cutting thing was just her version of Sayori's depression, Damian would discover it, tell her off for doing it, and she, wanting to impress the boy she deeply admired, would surely stop and blah, blah, blah. Cue the wedding bells.

But she'd seen Yuri being obsessive too about the things she liked, not to mention clingy to a fault, if her outburst yesterday at discovering her and Damian were reading the same thing was something to go by, and now she knew what the taller girl did as an outlet to those feelings. Would Damian be able to handle it if Monika turned that obsession up to eleven? Would _Yuri_ be able to handle it? The girl apperantly liked to play with knives after all, and that could turn very, very dangerous, very, very quickly.

The Slider had reached the lowest point Monika could muster, and she exhaled slightly, her head aching. She considered stopping at this point, but she needed to do one more thing.

She searched for Natsuki's name.

In truth, there was probably no reason to do this. It seemed none of the boys were the slightest bit interested in following the pinkhaired baker's Route which was understandable enough. The "bratty, rude girl" was another trope that Monika didn't really care for, and she probably didn't even need to change any of the short girl's Sliders either, her own toxicity doing a great job already at keeping every one around her at bay, so at least she could spare that headache.

But if something went wrong, and the boys started pursuing her as the only girl with a planned Route left, she would need to be ready to destroy her without hesitating.

Oh, she was sure that Natsuki had some horrible secret she was hiding like Yuri and Sayori that made her "redeemable" or something like that, but as her Slider for the girl reached red, she realized that she really didn't care about finding out what it might be at all.

In fact, she found she no longer cared if any of the girls in her Club were found dead in a ditch tomorrow.

She sighed, squinting in pain at her own reflection, seeing that the Slider now resembled that of the two others.

_So far, so good._

It really was an odd game. Usually if the girls in normal Dating Sims had problems, they were small, mostly unserious things, quickly solved so the MC could move onwards on romancing them. Things like the girl not having enough money for the bus, so the MC would have to give her a ride, or a girl would be faced with going out in the rain which would ruin her hair if not for the MC lending her his jacket to hold over her head.

Depression, cutting yourself, and whatever Natsuki was dealing with that she was sure she didn't want to know about, were... quite a few steps above those things. And she had no idea how the the whole "Superhero" aspect fit in to anything.

Oh well, it wasn't like she needed to understand the game tonally, or pick apart its hidden themes, or anything like that at all. All that mattered was that she was able to win it. She'd completed the first steps, successfully having stopped caring about any of the female Club members' wellbeing.

Now, it was time for step two.

She turned her head to look at Yuri, internally groaning, not at what she had to do to the girl now, but the unbearable pain that was sure to come on top of all she'd already gotten just by looking herself in the mirror. She briefly thought about waiting until tomorrow where the pain would surely subside a little, but decided against it.

She'd waited long enough already, and it would be good in the long run for her to push her limits in order to surpass them.

She moved towards the girl sitting on the floor, and lowered herself down to sit next to her, forcing herself to smile kindly even though she felt more like cringing at the display.

_God, she's just so pathetic._

Yuri had felt Monika's presence next to her, and her shoulders seemed to tighten a little, as if dreading what was about to happen. Monika had to applaud her instincts.

"You ready to talk now?" Monika asked, making sure that her voice didn't sound mean or judgmental in any way that Yuri could interpret.

The devastated girl raised her head from her knees, and looked at Monika.

Her eyes had become bloodshot from crying so much, and her cheeks were wet. It seemed she didn't wear mascara or makeup, since there weren't any traces of chemicals smeared on her face from the tears.

_She's just naturally beautiful in every way, because of course she is._

It had really become so easy to hate Yuri in the last few minutes. Monika found that she couldn't think of a single aspect about the girl that didn't annoy her.

"I- I think so." Yuri said, in a hoarse voice. "Th-thank you s-so much for w-waiting."

_Thanking me really is the least you could do, after taking your time like that. You're lucky I had something useful to do with my time, so this wasn't a complete waste for me._

"It was no trouble at all." Monika said, still smiling gently, not betraying her true emotions.

"Y-you're not gonna r-report me to th-the staff, r-right? I- I know it m-must have l-looked really b-b-bad, but I swear, I- I have it u-under co-con-c-"

_Good Lord, just stop with the stammering and spit it out already!_ Monika thought, and held up a hand to signal for her to stop, still smiling kindly.

"I said that I wouldn't tell anyone, Yuri, and I stand by that. We all have our odd ways to deal with our feelings, and whatever you decide to do to yourself really is your own business, and I have no right to meddle with that. And besides, it looks like you got a handle on it." Monika lied.

She wasn't that used to deceiving people, telling them falsehoods, and had never really been good at it, finding it immoral and wrong. But she found it was easier to lie through her teeth to someone she didn't care about whatsoever, and given Yuri's current state of vulnerability, both physically and emotionally, she was in no position to see through her deception, and find out that Monika found her cutting habits to be creepy, weird and disgusting.

Just like Yuri herself.

Yuri sniffed, and her eyes became watery again.

_Oh no. Stuttering is bad enough, but stuttering while sobbing is like its own special layer of Hell._

"R-really?" Yuri asked. "N-not even D-Damian?"

"My lips are sealed." Monika smiled, thinking about how much she hated to repeat herself.

"Th-thank you so much!" Yuri exclaimed, her voice breaking as tears streamed down her face yet again, and she threw her arms around Monika, pulling her into a hug. "Y-you're the best friend I c-could have a-asked for."

Monika forced herself not to flinch away from Yuri's touch, even as she found it incredibly gross and uncomfortable, having seen what those arms around herself looked like beneath the sleeves. She just hoped the blood wouldn't leak through the fabric and make contact with her own skin.

She supposed she should probably hug her back, and reluctantly settled her own arms around Yuri's waist. To distract herself from how awkward this was, she looked down at what she could see of Yuri from behind her shoulder, searching for her Love Slider. She found it, and looked through the names in the folder.

To think she had thought looking through their folders was too much of a "breach of privacy." Honestly, who'd care about whatever pointless crushes this girl had on anyone? To purposefully limit herself by not using the Sliders to their fullest potential had been foolish, but then again, she had been foolish for trying to help these computer programs in the first place.

_Aw, how sweet._ She thought, seeing her own name amongst the masses, a little above half-filled. She wondered for a brief moment if that was like the love every one had for their friend, or if the girl had some levels of romantic feelings towards her. In order to keep herself from gagging, she chose to think it was the former. The Slider probably had to be green at the very least before the feeling reached those levels.

And she found to her surprise that there were way more green names here than she had anticipated. She wondered what that meant for Yuri's psyche.

Well, it was no time for sightseeing. She had a mission.

She found Damian's name, and found that its Slider was just a little below her own, a pale yellow approaching green, probably as a sign that Yuri still hadn't fully realized how exactly she felt about the boy. Time to help her figure out.

She was glad Yuri couldn't see her grit her teeth in pain, as she raised the Slider until it was glowing bright green, receiving a big chunk of pain in response. It was going to be hard sleeping tonight, after abusing her head so much today.

_Whatever. I can sleep when my Ending is secured._

"You really love Damian, don't you?" Monika asked, knowing the answer since, well, she'd just made sure she did.

Yuri broke the hug, untangling herself from Monika, and looked with a shocked expression through waterstained eyes at her. Her pupils had constricted again, having shrunk to tiny proportions, giving her that vaguely unsettling look of derangement in her face.

"W-wh-what d-do y-you m-mea-"

"Shh." Monika interrupted her. "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone about that either. But it's kind of obvious, isn't it?"

Yuri looked scared, then slowly nodded.

Monika closed her Love Slider, and opened up her Interest Slider instead. As expected, she found Portrait of Markov, as well as many other book titles and what she assumed were the names of various fictional characters, and... blades. And of course, Damian was there too. So many idle interests, just waiting to be turned into full-blown obsession.

"It's okay." She said, ignoring the pain as she raised her Interest Slider. "I actually think it's really cute what you two have together, and I fully support it."

"D-" Yuri croaked hoarsely, coughing once to clear her throat, and Monika could see her pupils shrinking even further. What an interesting reaction. "D-do you think he likes me the same way?"

Her voice had the tone like that of a child asking if they could have an ice cream, excited and dreading the answer at the same time.

_He picked your Route, so he must have, even if I don't understand why anyone would._

"Well..." She said, carefully inserting some playfulness into her voice, and lowered it to a whisper. "Don't tell anyone about this, okay?"

Yuri nodded excitedly, all of her focus on Monika.

"I overheard Damian speaking to Jon earlier today, when they were alone." Monika said in a low, breathy voice, widening her smile. "And I heard him say that you were easily the hottest girl in this whole school!"

Yuri blushed scarlet, but couldn't suppress a slight smile creeping along her face as she heard the lie.

"R-r-really?" She asked, clearly believing Monikas lie completely. "H-he d-doesn't th-think that I'm t-too..."

She blushed deeper, eyes falling down briefly to glance at her own chest, struggling to find the word she was searching for.

"...b-big?"

_Oh, for god's sake. How vain can you get?_

"To be honest?" Monika said. "I don't think he, or any other boy in this school has the slightest issue with your size. Quite the contrary, actually."

_Something has to make up for your lack of personality. Slut._

Yuri was avoiding eye contact, and her face actually managed to turn even more red, but Monika could tell that her compliments were working in making Yuri excited and hopeful. She was so easy, like soft clay, able to be formed into whatever Monika needed her to be.

Yuri grasped her head, wincing a bit as the effects of Monika's tampering took their hold over her.

Monika pulled an aspirin from her pocket, offering it to Yuri, who gratefully accepted the pill.

"You'd better hurry though." Monika said, still smiling. "Who knows what would happen if Natsuki got to him first.

A frown grew on Yuri'd face, and her face seemed to darken, taking Monika's mild jest seriously.

"I won't let her get the chance." Yuri said, without stuttering once.

_Interesting. Maybe that could be something for me to play around with._ Monika thought.

"Atta girl." She said, clapping her on the shoulder a few times, before rising from the floor, and helped Yuri get to her feet as well.

"Oh." Yuri said, looking down.

Monika followed her gaze and saw that the sink she'd been standing over looked like something from a horror movie, the white china stained in crimson spurts of Yuri's blood. The floor beneath it had also gotten a few hits of the scarlet liquid, and Monika could see that it was starting to lose it's shiny, reflective surface as it dried.

"I- I was way more m-messy than I th-thought." Yuri said, face flushing. "S-so embarrassing. Uhm. I- I better start c-cleaning it up."

Her eyes darted from her bloodstains to the bathroom door, and back again, and Monika could tell she'd much rather be somewhere else, with _someone_ else.

Monika put a hand on her shoulder.

"You know what? I'll clean up for you."

Yuri once again looked shocked.

"R-really? Y-you'd do that?"

"Sure." Monika said, smiling. "What are friends for, right? Now, I think you'd rather be somewhere else entirely, if I'm not much mistaken."

_The faster you go and make an idiot out of yourself in front of Damian, the better._

"You really are the best, M- Monika." Yuri said, voice heavy with sincerity and gratitude. "Thank you. For everything."

She turned around to leave the bathroom.

"Hey, Yuri!" Monika called after her.

Yuri turned, to look at her with an inquisitive look.

"Think you forgot something." Monika said, pointing a finger at the bloodstained knife still on the floor.

Yuri blushed deeply, bending down to hurriedly retrieve the blade, and deposited it in her bag. WIthout saying another word, she finally departed the bathroom.

"Have fun!" Monika called after her.

When the door closed behind her, her smile vanished and her face settled into a more neutral expression, which quickly became a frown in reaction to a particularly painful throb in her head.

"Son of a bitch." She mumbled, fumbling in her pocket to retrieve another aspirin, and popped it into her mouth, swallowing it. She almost sat down on the floor again, in an attempt to try and rest her head, but remembered then that she had quite a job ahead of her, cleaning up all the blood spatter Yuri had left behind.

She groaned internally. At least Sayori's problem didn't leave such a mess behind. A mess she had to clean up.

There was no use in moaning about it however, since it was more beneficial to her plans for Yuri to be out there in the public with her altered emotions, instead of cleaning up this place alone, isolated. If that meant Monika had to scrub the floor to get rid of her disgusting spills, then so be it.

She grabbed some paper towels from the wall, moistured them with some tap water, and got to work, starting with the floor and worked her way up to the sink. All in all, not that straining, taking her maybe 5 minutes in total.

Five minutes for her to reflect on the decisions she'd made in here. Had her actions been too hasty, made in the spur of the moment? Had it really been worth it to delete her friends from her life, just like that, and actively plan their suffering?

Obviously she didn't care about them. They were just robots, after all, their feelings not even worth considering.

But she had enjoyed their company. Even if she knew they weren't real, it had been nice, feeling the illusion of finally having friends.

Finally done with the sink, she threw the now pinkish, soaked paper towels into the trash basket mounted on the wall, shaking her head to get rid of her useless thoughts.

Now wasn't the time to doubt herself. Friends were irrelevant, compared to getting her Ending. Nothing else mattered, least of all her feelings, since she could easily get rid of them just by looking in a mirror. Maybe she'd completely delete her doubts once her head had calmed down a bit again. For now, she really just needed to go home and get some sleep.

Her plan to do that was ruined however, when a loud voice called out for her the second she stepped out of the bathroom and closed the door behind her.

"Monika! There you are!"

She flinched at the volume level, crashing like a wave against her aching head, and turned to see Sayori running towards her in the hallway, arms waving to get her attention. Had she always sounded this annoying?

She barely had time to brace herself, as the happy girl crashed full force into her, throwing her arms around her waist and squeezed, hard.

"Hng!" Monika's eyes widened, as her sore side, already overexerted from the stomach cramps of throwing up in the toilet, was further crushed beneath Sayori's bear hug.

"I've been looking for you!" Sayori yelled happily, oblivious to Monika's choked exclamation of pain, nesting the side of her head against Monika's body as she spoke. "Something wonderful just happened, and I needed to telll you, most of all!"

_Let go of me, you moron. I thought I had lowered your Joy far enough for you to at least be a bit less annoying._

She glanced down at the girl holding her in the painful tackle hug, to check her Sliders. Her Joy was bright green, and the bar was even longer than it had been before she'd lashed out at her in the Club. Whatever had happened up there after she'd left in guilt, had made Sayori so happy that it had bypassed her manipulation.

"I did it, Monika. I worked up the courage to ask Jon if he wanted to go to the movies with me tomorrow. And he said yes!"

She gave a delighted squeal, and tightened her embrace around Monika, who hardly even registered the strengthened pain over her own seething anger, boiling in her blood at hearing Sayori's words.

_She's invited him on a first date already?!_

She felt her own face contort in rage. She'd made all these preparations in the bathroom, all these plans to get Jon to choose her instead of Sayori, and in one swift motion, this obnoxious airhead had ruined everything. The first date was essential in Dating Sims, they were the thing that truly cemented the Route you had chosen, the point of no return.

And it was happening tomorrow.

"I wanted to thank you, most of all." Sayori kept going. "If not for you, I wouldn't have been in this amazing Club, and probably never would have gotten the push I needed to ask him. I don't know what it is about the place, but ever since I joined, I've just felt... happier. Happier than I've felt in such a long time. So, thank you. So, so much."

She was rubbing salt in the wound more effectively than Natsuki could ever do with her remarks, telling Monika that it was thanks to her that the Route was going ten times faster than expected.

She turned to Sayori's Joy Slider again, trying not to think of how much this was going to hurt, on top of everything else she'd done in the bathroom. She needed to rectify her mistake right this instant, before the Route was locked in.

"I'm so happy for you." She said, fighting to keep her voice level, calm and kind, and started lowering the Joy Slider, instantly feeling the throbbing in her temple increase tenfold. "Now, you better keep it up."

Sayori flinched as the Slider slowly lowered, becoming a more faded green, probably already feeling the effect. She untangled herself from Monika, looking up at her with her wide, blue eyes, her smile faded.

"Huh? Keep what up?" She asked, confused.

Monika forced a gentle smile on her face, even as her skull felt like it was splitting open, keeping one of her eyes trained on the steadily declining Slider, and taking Sayori herself in with her other.

She started hearing the faint sound of ghostly laughter, hysterical, maniacal even, echoing through her head. Laughter at Monika, overjoyed at her misery, her failures. She saw the now shrinking smile on Sayori's face as the Slider got ever lower, saw the brows over those shimmering blue eyes furrow. She found that it was so easy to imagine a domino mask placed over those eyes, so easy to mentally apply white facepaint on those rosy cheeks, and it was no stretch of her imagination to picture the girl rambling on with that oblivious voice for hours on end over some useless topic as Monika sat restrained, and gagged in a chair.

"Your good mood, of course." Monika said, still keeping up her smile. "It's fantastic that you've found your happiness again, but be careful you don't lose it. Jon is a cheerful boy, and I don't think he'd be happy to watch a movie with a sad sap, bringing the mood down around him. But don't worry, if you just keep smiling, then I'm sure he'll want to continue hanging out with you."

"W-what?" Sayori asked, her smile gone and voice breaking as she looked into Monika's eyes, her expression full of incomprehension as she felt her happiness draining away. A single tear flowed down from her eye, traveling down her cheek.

Monika's smile grew, as the brunette started to feel genuinely happy herself for the first time since entering the bathroom.

"See, that's exactly what you don't want to be doing tomorrow." She told Sayori, reaching up to wipe away the tear. The Slider was now a little below the half-way point, bright yellow in hue. She'd stopped lowering it, as she felt like if she continued for even a milimeter, she'd pass out on the spot. It would have to do for now. "Just stop feeling sad, and I'm sure everything will work out splendidly between you two."

As her finger made contact with Sayori's head, the girl visibly flinched away, grasping at her own forehead in pain.

"Oh, I'm sorry, is it the headache again?" Monika said, in mock concern, and pulled out an aspirin. "Here. Maybe this can make you a bit happier?"

Sayori, now looking terrified, glanced at the pill held out for her, then looked back on Monika, and back at the pill. It looked like she might burst out crying at any minute.

She turned on the spot, without saying a single word, and ran away as fast as she could.

Monika smiled wider, her head feeling as if someone had poured molten lava straight into her brain. She'd let her run off for now, since the immediate crisis had been averted, then finish her off tomorrow.

"Remember! Think happy thoughts!" She called after the girl scrambling to get away from her.

She raised her hand still holding the white pill to her mouth, and swallowed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternative Title: Holy Mental Monologues, Monika!  
> Hope you all enjoy this story. As always, feedback is appreciated, even if it's just pointing out typos.


	5. Hang In There Pt. A

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys!  
> So, after some helpful (not to mention devastating) feedback from friends and family, it has come to my attention that my chapters are way too long, and actually throws people off from reading my stories. I took this to heart with the innate maturity I’ve always had when facing criticism concerning my work (I only cried like, three times) and have come up with a solution: splitting the chapters up.  
> Now, the CORRECT solution would have probably been to CUT some of the content (shudder) but I’m nowhere close to being a skilled enough writer to do that, so I had to settle for the next best thing.  
> This probably won’t even matter to any of you brilliant people who actually managed to read through a 20.000+ word PROLOGUE, but it does to me. I promise I will only split up the chapters that become longer than that, like this one.  
> Hope you enjoy!

The wind rushed against Jon's face as he soared across the sky, arms stretched out in front of himself, hands curled into fists. Maybe this served to make him faster, more aerodynamic, but if he was being honest, he mostly just did it because the pose looked cool when his Dad would do it, and however shallow it might sound to others, looking cool made him happy.

And he was very, very happy today.

_I'm going on a date tonight!_

He giggled wildly at the thought, unable to contain himself, the sound deafened by the wind blazing around his ears. Thankfully, it was uncommon for bugs to be at an altitude of 25,000 feet in the air, so he didn't have to worry about getting flies in his open mouth, flying at this speed.

Granted, the word "date" hadn't exactly been directly spoken yesterday, when Sayori had unexpectantly approached him a few minutes after Damian and Natsuki had both left the classroom, and it wasn't like he was expecting anything to "happen" on the "date." Quite the contrary really, since that would be an utterly terrifying concept in and of itself. "Date," he reminded himself, didn't have to mean anything in a romantic context, it could just as easily be for a totally harmless, social event, which this was. Like... a playdate! Except not like a playdate, because he wasn't a toddler.

He heard the mechanical roar of a jet turbine a few thousand feet above him in the sky, and glanced up to catch the bottom of an airplane rushing past him in the opposite direction. He briefly thought about what would happen if he flew up there and did some loop-de-loops in the air for the entertainment of himself and the passengers, but it didn't take him long to come to his senses again, and dismiss the childish thought.

It wouldn't be worth the few laughs he'd get if even one of them thought he was the creature from Nightmare At 20,000 Feet, and started a panic in a closed, cramped space that high in the air. Plus, he didn't really like the idea of doing stunts as Superboy in this school uniform he was currently wearing. There was of course the issues regarding his secret identity which would arise if any of them would see and take a picture of the boy flying in midair, wearing a Gotham High uniform, and post it on social media which Damian, as well as his mom and dad would definitely throw a fit at him for.

But even discounting that, it just didn't feel right for him to do that stuff without wearing the "S" crest of the House Of El, known to the public worldwide as the Symbol of Superman. Even flying around like this, wearing these clothes, felt a little weird for him, but he could look past it since he didn't do it where anyone could see him. Without the crest, he was just Jon Kent, son of mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent and his wife, Lois Lane, not Superboy. Jon Kent didn't fly around fighting aliens or go on superhero team-ups, he went to school like the normal boy he was, and today he would go on a totally awesome, 100% platonic friendship date to the movies with Sayori.

His smile widened further, and he spun his body around in the air, bending his arms slightly and placed them behind his head which was now looking up at the bright sky above him, instead of the ground beneath him, his body looking as if he was relaxing in bed instead of where he actually was, zooming towards Gotham at a ridiculous height.

He really hadn't expected yesterday to end the way it had, with how things had gone between Damian and Natsuki, Monika and Yuri's premature departure from the room, and Sayori's little... episode, which had confused him just as much as it had seemingly befuddled her. He'd pretty much accepted that much to his regret, things wouldn't end on that positive a note that day, which he'd supposed he'd just have to live with. Not every day could end with everyone being happy.

And then Sayori had completely flipped the script on him in the most Sayori way ever, by asking him if he'd like to go out tomorrow.

He closed his eyes, trusting his super-senses to detect any potential obstacles in the air around for him to dodge, such as birds, drones and other superheroes, as he recalled the scenario that had happened at the end of the day in his mind, thinking that he'd probably remember everything about it in perfect detail thirty years from now.

Natsuki had finished packing up her things, slinging her backpack over one of her shoulders, and had been walking briskly towards the door to leave the Club as well, but at the halfway point, she'd turned sharply to face Jon, who despite her less than impressive height, and his own unique abilities, actually had quite the menacing effect on him, just with her presence, the way she oozed confidence in herself from every little movement she made. She'd looked at him with those fierce eyes of hers, before finally sighing, as if she'd really prefer not to speak up.

"So, about Damian..." She'd started.

Jon had taken a deep breath at this. He'd expected some variation of this topic, so it was hardly surprising that she'd brought it up.

"I'm so, so sorry about his behaviour." He'd said. "I think he's still getting used to the idea of... being here. He shouldn't have said those things to you."

"I don't care about what he said to me." She'd said, scowling. "I can take whatever that dweeb can throw at me, which was why I taunted him like I did. I was literally asking for it."

Jon had thought back to the incident at those words, remembering that it had actually been her who'd started by attacking Damian's poem like that, completely unprovoked. He still didn't think that excused the way his friend had lashed out at them.

"I was poking the bear, seeing how far I could push him." She'd continued. "It's one of my special talents to get on people's nerves and I like to exercise it to get to know people better, to see where their limits are, and your friend is one of the easiest targets I've seen. Getting trashtalked in return is part of the fun."

There had been a lightly bragging tone in her voice, which made it clear that she was very proud of this selfproclaimed "special talent" of hers.

"But Yuri was innocent. She wasn't in on the joke, she didn't deserve to be involved the way she was, and I think she was genuinely hurt by what he said. That tea excuse is something she has a habit of using when she's deeply distressed."

Jon had been surprised to hear Natsuki talk with such sincerity and seriousness about Yuri of all people, whom she seemed to derive a lot of pleasure from taunting herself, if what he'd seen of their dynamic so far was anything to go by.

"I agree." Jon had said. "He went way too far, and I will make sure he apologizes, to both of you."

"Cool." Natsuki had said, giving a thumbs up. "I'll apologize too, next time I see her. Don't get me wrong, I give her crap too, and I've crossed the line as well a few times, which I genuinely regret. But I've known her for so long, that she knows what to expect from me, and knows how to deal. I think it's even helped strentghen her somewhat, in some aspects. But Damian's an unknown, and someone I think she genuinely wants to impress, so you can imagine how she must have felt, being called a 'faker' by him."

"Yeah, I understand." Jon had said, sighing. "I'll talk to him about it tomorrow."

"Awesome." She'd said, giving him a shrewd smile. "I'll be off now, since I have a feeling Monika took off already. She and the others have been having some trouble with migraines lately, and it makes her a tad forgetful sometimes. If I were you, I wouldn't wait up."

"Noted, thanks." Jon had said, and she'd waved goodbye to him, and Sayori who'd raised her own hand in response, before exiting through the door.

He remembered thinking that he couldn't quite get a reading on the shorter girl. There was certainly more to her than just the surface level aspects of being rude just for the sake of being rude. It seemed to him like it was a front she put up, hiding away her true personality which from what he'd seen bleed through the facade, was a kind and loyal girl who'd always stick up for the people she cared about, kinda like Damian. Actually, _a lot_ like Damian.

Damian, like her, had a bit of an attitude problem and quite the superiority complex which originated from an intense upbringing, raised with the explicit purpose of being the best of the best, the one who would eventually take over the legacy of the Batman himself, which left little in regards to kindness and empathy towards others. He was way better now than he'd been before, due to the good people the boy had in his life, like Alfred, Dick Grayson, and, Jon liked to think on at least some level, his own friendship with him.

However, Damian's disrespectful behaviour mostly came from his inability to relate to more normal, less "troubled" people, and in most cases, he didn't even realize the things he said to others could be perceived as hurtful, which was when Jon tried to step in, and point him in the right way. Natsuki however, seemed to know exactly what impact the things she said had on others, and did it anyway, as a way of "poking the bear" as she'd put it, to analyze people and how they'd react, like... like a detective, actually.

She was an interesting girl for sure, he'd thought. He even imagined that she and Damian could end up becoming fast friends due to the many similarities between them, if those same similarities didn't also make them attack each other verbally every chance they got, each insult becoming more and more barbed in their innate desires to one-up the other.

He'd sighed, thinking that he hoped if the two couldn't become friends, they could maybe eventually reach a point where they could at least tolerate the other, and not go off on each other every time they spoke. One could hope.

Before he packed up his things and left, he'd approached the girl sitting at the desk by the window, her head having turned to look through it, idly. He'd wanted to talk to her about the thing that had happened earlier, where she'd frozen up midsentence, seemingly remembering something unpleasant, judging from her expression. It had been very odd to see her familiar cheeriness replaced with something so somber.

"Hey." He'd said gently, having made it to the side of her desk. She'd turned her head at the sound, looking up at him, smiling.

"Oh, hey Jon. What's up?" There was no hint of anything out of the usual in her voice, she was the same Sayori as ever.

"I just spoke to Natsuki." He'd said, keeping up the friendly conversation as a way to prepare her as much as himself for his real question. "She told me the Club meeting is probably over now."

"Oh, right." She'd said. "Yeah, sometimes Monika forgets to tell us. That's okay though."

Her smile had then disappeared for a moment, and she'd looked up at Jon with momentary worry in her eyes.

"Please, don't think that she's unresponsible or anything like that. She's one of the hardest working students in the whole school, and it can't be easy for her to balance this Club on top of homework, and everything else. Plus the weird headaches everyone here's seemed to got, except Natsuki, Damian and you."

"Oh yeah, no, I totally get it." Jon had said, holding up his arms in a reassuring manner, wondering if he should tell her the correct word was "irresponsible," but decided against it. She'd gotten her meaning across perfectly, and correcting her would just be him missing the point of what she was saying. "I can't even fathom having to run this Club along with my own schoolwork, and her stuff is without a doubt like a hundred times harder than mine."

"Yeah." She'd said, admiration in her voice. "She's so amazing. You can go on ahead, I'm gonna wait here for her to get back and collect her things. She always gets so embarrased when she forgets, and I just want to assure her that no one is angry with her."

"You sure?" Jon had asked, frowning slightly. "Won't it be kind of lonely for you, just sitting here? I can stay too, if you want."

"On no, it's no trouble at all." She'd smiled at him. "I'll just work on my homework while I wait. I've gotten a ton of it, and I've really fallen behind. In fact, it's probably best if you leave, so I won't get distracted."

She'd given a small chuckle at that, and started pulling out her schoolbooks from her bag, laying them on the desk.

Jon could understand the logic behind this, and had decided that if he was going to ask, it would have to be right then and there.

"Sayori?" He'd said.

"Hm?" She'd made a distracted noise as a reply, which thankfully didn't sound impatient at all, as she looked through the pages of her book.

"About what happened earlier..." He'd said, wondering how best to put this. "Right before Monika left..."

He let the unspoken question linger in the air, feeling awkward. Maybe she didn't want to talk about it, but he needed to make sure she was okay.

She'd surprised him by smiling widely, blushing. She let out another chuckle.

"Oh, that." She'd said. "I'm not really sure what happened there, either. You know those times where you randomly remember something from long ago, and it just completely derails your train of thought?"

"Kind of?" Jon had said. He thought he had experienced similar things before, although he couldn't really remember any instances.

"Well, I was just really caught off guard by it this time, and as a result it messed up whatever I was saying. But it's fine now, I can't even remember whatever it was that popped into my head."

"You sure?" He'd asked, his worry not having lessened. That expression she'd had on her face during that time had been just short of pure shock, and it didn't strike him as a reaction fitting that of someone who'd just remembered something insignifant, like she'd portrayed it. "You know you can tell me if something's bothering you, right?"

"I appreciate the offer, but really Jon, I'm _fine."_ She'd said, putting emphasis on the last word, and reached out to give his hand a gentle squeeze as she smiled up at him. "Nothing's bothering me, except for these headaches and this darn homework. My life is great, I have the most wonderful friends, and I have no reason to be dissatisfied. What happened earlier was just me being silly."

She'd let go of his hand, and looked straight at him, meeting his eyes with her big, blue orbs, a look of reassurance in them.

"Don't worry about me, okay?"

He'd smiled back at her.

"I don't know if I can promise that. I tend to worry about my friends." He'd said. A bit of a sappy line maybe, but he never really felt embarrased about those when talking to Sayori.

"Aww." She'd said. "That's sweet, but unnecessary, at least in my case. I promise I'm fine, okay?"

"Alright, alright." He'd said, lifting his hands to signal that he yielded. "I'll be out of your hair now. Have fun with your homework."

"Easier said than done." She'd muttered. "But I'll try, thanks."

"Text you later?" He'd asked.

"You bet!"

Glancing behind him a final time, he'd made his way across the room towards the door to the hallway. He wasn't completely sure if he'd been satisfied with Sayori's explanation, but decided against pushing her further, and trust her to tell him if something truly was bothering her. They had only known each other for two days after all, even if it did feel like a lot longer, and maybe that was an insufficient friendship level for them to discuss those things.

He'd dismissed his thoughts about the subject, and placed his hand on the doorknob, preparing to exit the room. His thoughts were already on what kind of takeout his mom had ordered for dinner today, when Sayori had called out behind him.

"Jon!"

He turned his head, looking at her inquisitively. She'd gotten out of her chair, standing a few feet in front of it, as if she'd rised from it, taking a few steps towards him before freezing again, not even halfway. Her face had lost the smile, and her eyes were staring at him in a way that left no doubt about how serious she was in this moment.

She was also sporting cheeks so red, they'd make Yuri proud.

"Yeah?" He'd asked, unsure of this situation. Did she want to talk about what had happened earlier after all?

"D- do you, uh... d'you, y'know..." Her face got redder as she struggled to complete the sentence, and her eyes darted downward to where her hands were doing her signature move of touching her index fingers together. "Do you... like movies?"

"...movies?"

Of all the things she could have asked him, this was certainly one of the least expected.

"Yeah, uh, y'know, like..." She'd continued, still refusing to make eye contact with him as her face blushed further still. A small smile grew on her face which she hid away by biting her own lip. "...films? Moving pictures? With, uh, sound?"

"Uh, right." He'd said, feeling as if Sayori's nervousness was being carried over to himself, somehow. "Yeah, uh, I enjoy watching movies."

Really, who didn't?

"Oh, c-cool." Sayori had said, and Jon had wondered if her face could even get any redder than it was now. "M-me too. I've w-watched a lot of them, and I l-liked most of them. Except for the s-scary ones."

"Oh, r-right." He'd responded, wondering why he was stammering now, too. This was one of the weirdest conversations he'd ever had in his life. "Yeah, I prefer movies of the n-non horror variety as well."

"S-same." She'd said, and they stood like that for a while, him looking at her looking down at her hands, both of them not saying anything at all. At last, he'd broken the silence between them again.

"W-well, I better go n-"

"Doyouwannawatchamovie?" She'd blurted out, very fast, before speaking again in a slower voice, sounding like she had just ran a marathon. "Uh, in the cinema, that is. Tomorrow. With, uh. Me."

He'd thought that surely her face had reached maximum redness at that point, becoming almost the exact same hue as an overripe tomato, still with her eyes downcast as if her life depended on not meeting his gaze.

"Watch a... movie?" He'd repeated, taken aback by the unexpected question.

"It's okay if you don't want to!" Sayori had quickly said, with a slight twinge of panic in her voice. "I-it's short notice, I know, a-and I can't really pay for your ticket, o-or you p-probably have other plans, which is fine, really, y'know what, just f-forget I asked anything and-"

"Wow, wow!" Jon had interrupted, before she'd reach the point in the backtracking of her own suggestion that she'd apologize for even talking to him yesterday. "I'd love to go to the movies with you."

He really should have started with that in the first place. It hadn't been that complicated of a question after all, and it would have saved the poor girl a lot of awkwardness if he had. And yet underneath his sympathy for her, he did feel a slight hint of amusement at seeing her this flustered. It would be a real jerk move of him to say that however, so he'd decided to keep quiet about that.

Sayori's eyes finally traveled up to meet his own, wide and blue, looking at him with a mixture of fear and hope, as if she was afraid of believing him.

"R-really?" She'd asked, in a small voice. He'd smiled back at her, giving his best impression of the expression his dad always wore when he'd fly around and save people.

"Yeah. It sounds like fun." He'd said, meaning it.

Sayori's whole face had lit up, radiating joy in a way that would make you think he'd just said Christmas had been rescheduled for tomorrow. Her previous nervousness seemed to evaporate on the spot, as she ran up and threw her arms around him with such force that he actually had to use his flight ability to not fall to the ground by her impact.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" She'd exclaimed, happiness poring from every syllable in her voice. "It's gonna be so much fun, I promise! You won't regret it!"

"Looking forward to it." He'd said, feeling his face grow hot from having her this close to him. This whole situation felt extremely similar to how she'd reacted when he'd said he'd join the Club. Did she do this every time someone would accept going along with one of her suggestions? "So, what movie are we watching?"

"Uh..." She'd said, tightening her stance a bit in her hug, the tone of her voice telling him that she hadn't thought that far ahead yet. She broke the embrace, and took her phone out to check it, her face easing up into a light shade of pink. "Oh! That book we're reading actually got a film made about it, and was released last week!"

She'd looked at him, smiling.

"By watching it, we can say that we researched the book in our free time, like homework for the Club!"

Jon had laughed at that.

"I'm not completely sure about that logic, but I'd love to go watch it with you." He'd said. "What time tomorrow does it air?"

"Let's see..." She'd said, tapping her phone's screen a few times. "Ah, here it is... the schedule here says it airs at eighteen fifteen tomorrow at Gotham Kino."

"...do you mean a quarter past six pm?" Jon had asked, raising an eyebrow at the way she'd told the time.

"If that's when the clock says eighteen fifteen, then yes." She'd said, smiling pleasantly without acknowledging anything was out of the ordinary by calling it that.

He'd shrugged at that, thinking that many people their age probably had trouble using the correct clock terms. Nothing wrong with that.

After that, he'd asked her how they were going to go about doing this, and good thing he had, since Sayori hadn't thought that far ahead, either. After politely declining her suggestion to go over to his place by making the technically true excuse that it was far too long away from Gotham Kino, they'd eventually settled on them walking to her place after school tomorrow, where they could hang for a bit before heading off to see the movie.

Although initially hesitating this idea, Sayori had agreed after thinking it over for a bit, giggling that she'd have to clean her mess of a room now. Jon had assured her that there was no need to that, seeing as his room, although he'd cleaned it yesterday, usually looked like the aftermath of an encounter between Superman, and General Zod. They'd both laughed at that.

The vague, foul stench of chemicals in the air that had unfortunately become familiar to Jon these past two days, invaded his nostrils once again, shaking him from his reminiscing by alerting him to the fact that he was entering Gotham's airspace.

He opened his eyes, and spun his body around to fly in his previous position, since in about three miles he'd be out flying amongst actual buildings that might collapse if a half-Kryptonian who wasn't paying attention would fly through them, instead of the wide, flat terrain of the ocean he'd just been passing.

He stopped in the air, just below cloud level at the border of where the city started at the harbor, turning around to see the last of the sunrise, the fiery orb having all but risen above the water's horizon, painting everything in a golden light. He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath as he spread his arms out, feeling the warmth from its rays on his face, knowing its radiation was spreading through his body, fueling his powers.

He unzipped his jeans pocket, fumbling around a bit before pulling out his phone, making sure that the custom strap attached to the end was firmly secured around his wrist. Most people weren't this careful when they checked their phones, but given how much time he spent thousand of feet above the ground, it didn't hurt to have some extra safety measures in place. He supposed he could probably speed down and catch it, should worst come to worst and he dropped it, but that could likely result in him getting so far down that people might see him, and why should he risk that?

He pressed the on button on the side of the device, checking the display for the time. Quarter past seven, am. Half an hour earlier than he'd normally get out of bed.

He'd tried sleeping in like usual, waiting until the absolute last moment for him to arrive like always, but had found himself completely unable to. From the moment he'd gone to sleep the previous night to the moment he'd awokened again this morning, his thoughts had been on Sayori and, for lack of a better word, their date today.

He was so excited.

First thing he'd done when he'd gotten home yesterday, flying through the apartment window, was telling his mom about the arrangement. He'd known she would be all over it, teasing him about it in her usual manner, but he found that he didn't really mind it that much, since he knew it came from a place of love.

After she'd dropped the classic "growing up so fast" line, she'd become more genuine, hugging him tightly and telling him how proud of him she was, and had then gladly helped him write his second poem that he'd be sharing at the Club today. He was even more happy with this one than the previous, not finding as many flaws with it. Maybe he was getting the hang of this writing thing. He couldn't wait to share it with Sayori.

He glanced down at his phone again, checking his messages. In a fit of excitement, he'd texted Sayori this morning when he'd just awokened, asking if she was ready for today. Usually she'd respond at most ten seconds after, but not this morning, which was fair enough, to be honest. Just because he'd felt too awake today, didn't mean she was, and it had been very early when he'd sent the text.

He opened up their message history, and immediately saw that the last messages from her remained the cat memes she'd sent right before the Club meeting yesterday, which still made him smile, looking at them now. It seemed she hadn't seen his message, which was perfectly fine with him. It wasn't like his message was in urgent need of a response, and in any case they'd be talking with each other in a bit at the school anyway, something he looked more and more forward to by the second.

Thinking about it, it was a bit odd just how fast the two of them had become friends. Not that Jon had ever had a rough time making friends at his previous school, but never this fast, and never this close before. Although they'd only known each other for less than two days, it already felt like they'd been together since childhood, based on how comfortable they were, talking and interacting with each other.

Like, fair enough, they had their moments where they'd blush up and stumble through sentences, like the awkward moment yesterday where Sayori had asked him out, but those occurances were few and far between, only happening when they suddenly remembered that each of them were a different gender from the other.

Which was a dumb mindset, to be perfectly honest. It shouldn't matter at all to him that she was a girl, or that he was a boy and a half-alien, as long as they both were friends, and liked the other's company. At times, he'd even forget that she was even a girl, and would treat her just the same as he would any of his other male friends, which was more than ideal for him.

And yet, the realization would sneak into his head at unwelcome times, making him think about just how feminine her features were, just how light her laughter sounded, reminding him of the soft crinkling of river water, and just how cute that red bow made her look, which was definitely different from how he thought of his male friends. Whenever that happened, he tended to look away, cursing the way he'd feel his face grow hot at those incredibly stupid moments, like yesterday, where both of them had finished the page of their book at the same time, and in their rush to be the first to flip the page, had made contact with the other's hand.

That awkward moment had caused them to look away from the other, pausing their reading for at least two minutes, which was what he found dumbest of all. He blamed the way mainstream media entertainment would portray nearly every single relationship between a guy and girl as always being romantic in some way, leaving a sort of unspoken social expectation of being something more than friends between the two, which was the last thing he wanted to happen, no matter how many smirks and winks his mom would send him whenever he brought up Sayori in casual conversations.

Not that she wasn't attractive, by any means, quite the contrary actually. But they had a good, working dynamic between them right now that he enjoyed, being the best of pals, joking and laughing with each other and just enjoying the other's company. He'd never exactly tried having a girlfriend before, but from what he'd seen of the people who had, he was quite sure that he didn't want the inevitable drama that came from that with a girl as cool as Sayori.

And God, she was so cool.

He'd never met anyone who'd been more on the same wavelength as himself than Sayori was. She was kind to everyone around her, incredibly funny, never failing to make him and the people around her smile and laugh, and humble to a fault, sometimes sounding like she didn't think that much of herself when praising the friends in her life, which was so baffling to Jon.

Sure, maybe she wasn't as gifted as someone like Damian when it came to the academic things like Math, Science or even English, something that she herself wasn't scared to admit at all, but if stuff like people skills and communication could get grades, he was confident that she would get straight A+'s consistently, whereas his spikyhaired, sourfaced friend would be lucky to get a C- on a good day.

She had an uncanny ability to say and do exactly the right things in any given situation, to turn an otherwise tense situation into something positive, which he really valued in someone. The only person he knew that could possibly compete with her was his dad, who only needed to smile in order for a group of strangers to feel safe and ease up around him, and for her to be able to do the same without the name recognition that came from being Superman, was something truly admirable about her.

When it came to the friends he had as Jon Kent, without powers or the crimefighting aspects, it was no contest at all. Sayori was the best friend he had in that department, and he thought she could even compete against a good chunk of the actual superheroes he knew. It didn't matter that she didn't have any powers, really. In his book, she easily reached Hero status.

He deposited the phone back into his pocket, making sure to zip it closed, and turned in the air to keep flying towards his destination at the school, still idly thinking about the date (which wasn't a date!) coming up later today.

He was also excited at the prospect of coming over to see her house, and get a feel of how she lived, but felt a little guilty about it at the same time, knowing that he couldn't really invite her home to his place, without having to explain how he got from Metropolis to Gotham City every single day. Maybe if he could blindfold her somehow, and fly her at superspeed to the apartment, then block all of the windows and somehow convince her that they were still in Gotham?

Even in his head, it was a stupid idea. Maybe Damian could think of a way, if he asked nicely.

_Damian._

He was above the schoolyard now, and could already see his friend, standing in his usual spot by the corner of the yard, away from everyone else, hidden slightly in the shadow of a tree. Using his telescopic vision, Jon zoomed in on the boy, seeing that his head was turned directly towards Jon, eyes already glaring at him with that familiar unimpressed stare.

He sighed, and flew over by the roof to hide from view of the other students. He did not look forward to talking to Damian about yesterday.

He remembered back to the other encounter he'd had with one of the girls last afternoon.

Him and Sayori had just accomplished putting the finishing touches on their plans for the not-date tomorrow, when the door to the Club had opened, revealing Yuri in the doorframe. She had been breathing heavily, seemingly exhausted from running up all the stairs to the room as fast as she could, without having stopped once to catch her breath.

But even disregarding that, Jon had been able to tell that there was something different about the tall girl, as she looked around the classroom, darting her eyes around the room, showcasing how weirdly decreased in size her pupils seemed to have gotten.

She looked vaguely... manic, her normally smooth purple hair being messier than usual, strands of it sticking up at weird angles, and just in general looking way more untidy than how she normally presented herself, as a dignified and elegant young woman. There seemed to be darker, wet patches on her school uniform, particularly around the sleeves, which he supposed could have been from the water in the tea-making she'd gone off to previously. Maybe her hands had been shaking when pouring the liquid, causing some spillage. He hoped she hadn't burned herself. He'd seen how easily nervous and flustered she could get over the simplest things, but this was something else entirely.

He'd had a pretty good guess as to what, or more specifically, _who,_ had caused this change in her behaviour.

She didn't seem to have even noticed Jon or Sayori, even though they were standing together, right in the middle of the room, instead seeming to look through them as she scanned the rest of the place.

When he'd spoken up to greet her, her eyes had darted right to his own, staring with the most intense gaze he'd ever witnessed. It had been very unnerving to see her like this, and he'd had to remind himself that she was a friend, and that he liked her immensely, to not recoil from her staring.

She hadn't reciprocated his greeting, instead asking in a breathless voice if they knew where Damian was. Jon had swallowed at that, thinking that his friend's comments had impacted her even more than he'd thought.

When he'd told her that Damian had gone home shortly after she'd left the room, she'd broken the eyecontact with him, blinking as if she'd fallen out of a trance. She'd looked around, as if confused to find herself in the room, before muttering "I see," and moving over to collect her backpack.

He'd tried to tell her that he was sure Damian hadn't meant the things he'd said, that come tomorrow, he was positive he'd give her an apology, but it seemed as if Yuri had become completely deaf to his words, lost in her own thoughts as she quietly left the room again.

The oddness of that encounter made things a bit awkward for him and Sayori afterwards, and the red-bowed girl had said that she'd better go look for Monika to remind her that her things were still here, and they'd parted ways after a shared sentiment of "can't wait for tomorrow!"

Jon now glanced over the school roof's railing, making sure the coast was clear, before diving into the bush below that he'd pretty much claimed as his own by now, remembering in the last second before emerging from it to put his glasses on, to not give Damian anything to criticize him for like he usually would at the beginning of these mornings.

He brushed away some rogue leaves on his hair, and walked over determinedly to confront the shorter boy, who was already looking at him with that dissatisfied look in his eyes.

"You're early." He said, the tone of his voice finding a way to make his statement sound like an insult. Jon suppressed a sigh.

"Is that a problem?" He asked back.

Damian squinted at him, suspiciously.

"It's a break in the routine. Something I hadn't foreseen, adding an unpredictable element to the mix. And if I can't predict you, then yes, it's a problem."

Jon groaned, rolling his eyes.

"Maybe I just wanted to wake up early today? Maybe this is part of my new training routine, like what you do."

"Unlikely." Came Damian's short response. Then, he went on. "Doesn't fit your character to take initiative to do something like that. The fact that you're this defensive about it suggests that the reason is something you're embarrased about. And given how much your face has lit up like a christmas tree under very certain circumstances these past few days, it's safe to assume it has something to do with that Sayori girl. Did she ask you on a date?"

Jon felt his face grow hot at this.

"How did you-?"

"Ah, and now you're showcasing a mixture of further embarrassment, anger and fear at my suggestion, confirming my theory." Damian said, smirking smugly. "So, what are you doing later today? Probably some mindnumbingly cliché thing you'd see in the average teen romance flick. Restaurant? Stargazing? Movie?"

"I swear, if I find out you've stolen her or my phone to get this information, and you're just going through this 'World's Greatest Detective' bit to throw me off your track..." Jon began, lost for words on how to continue. How was he this infuriating, and why was he getting this infuriated by it? It wasn't like it was a secret or anything that he was going to the movies, but seeing that smug, punchable expression on Damian's face as he unveiled just how much he knew about what was supposed to be Jon's private life, really had a way of pushing his buttons.

"It's cute that you think I'd have to resort to theft to see your text history." Damian said, in a gloating tone, relishing how he'd been right about his guess that they were going to the cinema together. "Really, I could hack both of your phones any time I wanted to see exactly what you two are talking about at any point in time."

"And it's cute that you think you'd be able to stop me from beating you to a pulp if I ever found out you did something like that." Jon said, darkly. Perhaps not the most diplomatic of responses, but he was starting to get seriously pissed off at him. They hadn't even gotten to the thing about Yuri he'd originally wanted to talk to Damian about yet!

"Keyword in that sentence being _if_ you ever found out, which I'll just go ahead and assure you that you wouldn't. Ever." Damian said, his smirk becoming wider, and even more punchable. "And really, you're resorting to threatening me with physical violence? How dreary."

"This from the guy who've dropped the line about being able to kill me in sixteen different ways three times in the last two days?" Jon said, raising an eyebrow.

"Not even slightly comparable, Kent. But keep trying."

"Ugh!" Jon released a groan, and ran a hand through his own hair just to refrain from doing what he really wanted, which was grabbing Damian by the shirt collar, and throwing him a few hundred feet into the air. Knowing him, he'd probably find a way to land safely again, having some comment ready about how see-through and pathetic the attack was, anyway.

"Relax, Kent. I couldn't really care less about the texting going on between two hormonal teenagers. What I'm sure is the very enlightening, intellectually stimulating conversations taking place on your phones is safe with you two." Damian said, rolling his eyes.

"Gee, what a relief." Jon said, frowning at him. "How gracious of you to turn a blind eye to something that's none of your business in the first place. It must have been really hard for you, to let go of that amount of blackmail material."

"Don't say I never gave you anything." Damian responded, and Jon once again had trouble telling whether he understood his sarcasm and was playing along, or if he really did consider not hacking their phones as something extraordinarily generous. He wasn't sure if he really wanted to know the answer to that, now that he thought about it.

He sighed.

"I need to talk to you about something." He said, gathering his determination. This conversation would not be easy, and would most likely end with him feeling even more frustrated than he already was.

"If you want my advice for your movie-date tonight, I'm afraid I'll have to disappoint you." Damian said. "Since I haven't, and wasn't planning on indulging myself on what I'm sure would otherwise be, as people like you would call it, a _magical evening."_

"I get it, you figured out my plans with Sayori tonight, good for you, round of applause." Jon said, taking care to keep his voice level, refusing to give Damian any more satisfaction from his reactions than he'd already gotten. "I meant we need to talk about what happened yesterday."

Damian's eyes narrowed, as he snapped his head around to stare at Jon, who kept his expression neutral, not wanting to show weakness right now.

"What _about_ what happened yesterday?" He asked, in a rough voice.

"I think you know." Jon said. "And I really think you should apologize for the things you said."

"What _I_ said?" Damian exclaimed, outraged. "Did you even hear what that flamingo-haired twerp was saying? I tried playing nice Kent, but she was asking for everything coming to her."

"Yeah. She was." Jon said, remembering his conversation with Natsuki yesterday. "She was trying to rile you up to get a reaction from you, and by the looks of things, she succeeded. Great job figuring that one out, detective."

Jon clapped his hands together, slowly, trying not to enjoy mocking the boy in front of him, who was currently scowling at him.

"I'm talking about Yuri." He continued.

"Yuri?" Damian asked, confused. "I didn't say anything that could be considered hurtful to her."

_Is he actually serious?_

Jon had to suppress a look of utter disbelief. How was it he could be so observant of other people to the point that he could figure out exactly what Jon had agreed to do with Sayori this evening, and yet be so blind when it came to his own actions and how it affected the people around him?

"Attacking her on all fronts for being the only one to like your poem, and then calling her a faker for good measure doesn't seem hurtful to you?" Jon asked.

"I wouldn't call what I did 'attacking,' really." Damian said. "It seemed very unlikely to me that she was telling the truth, so I merely questioned her a bit to get her to speak a bit more sincerely. And I never called _her_ a faker, specifically. That was just what I thought was a warranted comment to the entire room."

"Which she suddenly wasn't a part of?" Jon asked, exasperated, as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "Look, Damian. If you want to have these fights with Natsuki, go for it. From what I can tell about her, she seems to actually think it's fun for some reason, which is why she keeps taunting you. So knock yourself out with her. But Yuri is... different. I know you've seen how nervous she can get, and it seemed like she was really hurt by your comments yesterday. She came back a bit after you left, and I'm telling you, something was definitely bothering her, even moreso than usual."

"She needs to grow up." Damian said, harshly. "If she can't even handle a few mean sentences, then how does she expect to do in the real world, after school? Especially when she lives in a city like Gotham. She needs to learn that the world won't adjust itself to fit her fragile sensibilities, just by stammering at everything."

"I know you're just saying this because you don't want to admit to being in the wrong here, and you don't actually mean any of it." Jon said, still keeping his face neutral. "And that's fine. But you should still apologize to her when you see her at the Club today."

Damian opened his mouth, looking like he was going to retort, but Jon talked over him.

"We can't all have as tough skin as you. Not all of us were raised in Nanda Parbat by an organisation of terrorist assassins. We have to show the people around us the same kind of kindness and acceptance that they show us, and maybe even a little more. Otherwise, how can we call ourselves heroes?"

"Okay, alright, fine!" Damian exclaimed, raising his hands in a "giving up" gesture. "You win! I'll go apologize to her as long as you stop this insufferable lecturing!"

Jon smiled.

"I knew you'd come around. Thank you, Damian."

"Whatever." Damian said.

They stood like that for a bit, the silence between them deafening. Jon realized he had to break it when he remembered he'd gotten here earlier today, meaning they'd be standing around like this for much longer than usually.

"So, uh." He began. "What time do you usually get here? I can't help but notice that you've been standing at this exact spot, underneath this tree, for the past three days when I got here."

"I arrive at half past six, sharp, every day." Came Damian's reply. "Right after I've finished morning training."

"Alright then." Jon said. "So at what point do you walk over to this spot? I used to think it was just before I arrived, so we could meet up, but you couldn't have known I'd get here this early. Well, unless..."

He shot Damian a suspicious look.

"Wait, you didn't put _another_ tracker on me, did you?"

"Don't flatter yourself, Kent." Damian said. "This spot isn't, and has never been for your benefit, but for my own. And I don't wander around this yard aimlessly. I've been standing here ever since I arrived, just like I did the previous days."

Jon stared at him.

"You stand here, unmovingly, for an hour and a half every day?"

"Correct." Damian said, with a tone to his voice that this was a perfectly normal thing to do.

"...why?" Jon asked.

"Studies show that an effective way to gain friends is to be outside, when the weather is the appropiate temperature, and there's a gathering of people close to the same age group as yourself around." Damian explained. "Since the purpose of me being here is to 'improve my social skills' I figured this would be a good way to accomplish my goal."

"...by standing completely still for over an hour, away from everyone else, hidden by the shadows?" Jon asked, looking at his friend in disbelief. Was he actually this clueless? It seemed to him that even with Damian's limited experience concerning friendships, he would know that this plan of his would be self-destructive at best.

To his further surprise, Jon saw Damian turn his head towards him, flashing a self-satisfied smirk.

"I'm meeting all the required parametres. Father can't say I didn't try."

Jon groaned, rolling his eyes. Of course Damian wasn't actually failing his goal as a result of him being socially incompetent, but had carefully devised the best possible way for himself to put in the minimum amount of effort required to hypothetically gain social interactions from his fellow students, while still making sure no one would ever even approach him, deliberately sabotaging himself just to spite his dad.

For a guy who'd constantly talk down to the people younger than himself for behaving immaturely (which Jon could personally attest to) Damian could act incredibly childish sometimes.

Jon decided to look away towards the other students, briefly considering leaving Damian to his "masterplan," when he spotted a head in the crowd with light, short strawberry-blonde hair, sporting a very familiar red bow on top, standing out to him amongst the sea of other students.

His face lit up, and he forgot all about his frustration towards Damian's behaviour as he observed the girl. She was walking very quickly through the crowd of students, keeping her head down so her face remained obscured and hidden from his sight even when a space cleared up between her and the uniformed bodies around her.

It did strike him as a bit odd seeing this behaviour from her, having her head and eyes lowered almost as if she was trying to avoid eyecontact with anyone, this being a strange departure from the usual role he'd seen from her as the social butterfly of the school.

He shook his head. It really wasn't his place to make assumptions on how she carried and presented herself when she walked to school. It wasn't like he was Damian.

He took a deep breath.

"Sayori! Hey, Sayori! Over here!" He yelled excitedly, taking a few steps out of the shadows of the tree, excited to talk to her again, and ask if she was looking as much forward as he was to this evening, and just generally hang out with her before classes started.

But to his surprise, he saw that she didn't stop, didn't turn her head in his direction, didn't even look up as he yelled across the yard. On the contrary, it seemed like she was... speeding up, instead.

_No, that's just my imagination. She wouldn't do that._

Hesitating a bit, he began walking forwards to maybe catch up to her, but she had already made her way to the school doors, and had disappeared inside the building. And what was more, Jon now noticed the students around him sending weird looks his way, staring at him for drawing attention to himself by shouting across the yard.

He wouldn't have cared at all about what they thought of him, if Sayori had reacted as he'd anticipated, turned her head and smiled that bright smile he'd come to associate with her, before heading over to join him.

But now that she'd ignored him (unintentionally, obviously) and had kept on walking, he just looked like a mentally challenged boy who'd shouted in the yard for no reason.

He kept his now forced smile up, as he felt his face grow hot, and awkwardly rubbed the back of his head, retreating back into the shadows of the tree to accompany Damian, thankful for the social refuge the shorter boy had enlightened him to.

"She- she must have not heard me." He said, rationalizing the embarrassing scene as much to himself as for Damian's benefit. "Probably had a lot of stuff on her mind. That must be it."

_"-TT-"_ Damian scoffed, rolling his eyes. "So, when is the plan for the wedding to take place? And how many kids can we expect from you two?"

"No idea what you're talking about." Jon said, hoping the shadows would conceal his blushing face from view.

His thoughts were speeding through his head, filling him up with insecurities and conspiracies of crazy reasons for why Sayori hadn't acknowledged him. He shook his head again, in an attempt to clear his mind.

_Just calm down. You'll see her after classes, at the Club where you'll read together and share poems like yesterday. There is no reason to worry, whatsoever._

"You know, I've been thinking about those girls at the Club lately." Damian said, as though musing to himself.

Seeing an opportunity to tease, Jon flashed a smirk that didn't match his current feelings at all, and turned his head towards Damian.

"Aww, that's sweet." He said. "Thinking about Yuri at night in your bed?"

"Hardly." Damian said, with a look of dignified condescension. "I've just noticed that they all seem rather... atypical, don't they?"

Jon raised an eyebrow at him, confused.

"What do you mean?" He asked. "They seem pretty normal to me."

Damian raised an eyebrow of his own.

"You don't think it's the slightest bit odd how three of them have very distinctive Japanese names, despite not having any clear asian features or accents, as well as incredibly vibrant, unusual haircolours, with matching eyes? This seem perfectly normal to you?"

"Uh." Jon said, still not getting his point. "My mom has purple eyes. And my dad is Superman. I... don't think I'm the best judge on the subject of normality."

_"-TT-"_ Damian scoffed again, crossing his arms. "Whatever."

* * *

Jon grabbed hold of the now familiar door with the two homemade signs informing anyone reading them of the purpose of the room it contained, and pushed it open, peering inside. To his mild disappointment, the only people he could see inside the classroom of the Literature Club was Natsuki, peering up from the manga she was reading at his arrival, sitting at her usual spot at the conjoined desks, and Yuri, who had apparently opted for sitting on the floor today, back against a wall, as she held onto her own book, with both hands gripping each side tightly. She too, raised her head at hearing Jon enter, and a smile littered her face as Damian slouched inside, a few feet behind Jon.

Classes had, as expected, been boring today, but Jon found it had been even harder to concentrate on Physics Class than usual. Instead of paying attention to the teacher ranting on with increasing frustration in her voice about how important it was for them to understand the laws of this subject, despite how needless it might seem to people, when the actions of certain individuals like The Flash had broken most of them, his thoughts had been lingering on Sayori.

She still hadn't replied to his texts.

He'd texted her again, at lunch break, this time not asking if she was excited for the movie tonight, but instead asking if it was even still happening. Because he was honestly starting to fear it might had been called off.

Normally, he wouldn't have thought much of her not responding, as there could be hundreds of good reasons for why she hadn't. She'd told him about how bleary she could get in the mornings, so it definitely wasn't out of the question that she could have forgotten her phone, or had run out of batteries for it. Both entirely reasonable and likely to happen, not just to her, but for him as well.

Except he knew that both weren't the case, as when he'd sent his text while absently eating a protein bar from the cafeteria, he'd seen the little green button pop up under her icon (which was a selfie with many layers of various glittery filters) signifying she'd gone on the app. And what was more, the small four letter word, _"read"_ had appeared under his texts, showing that she had seen them just now, too.

He'd smiled back then, knowing for certain that she'd respond now, and assure him that of course the cinematrip was still on, and probably call him silly as well for even having doubts.

But his smile had faded when he'd seen the button under her icon turn from green to gray, and there was no three dots bouncing around on the screen to indicate that she was writing him back.

She'd opened up the app, seen his messages, and had set herself to offline.

He hadn't sent her anymore messages, fearing that she would see further texts from him as annoying or clingy. He hadn't had the impression that she'd thought that about him at all yesterday, but he honestly didn't know what to think about this whole thing.

He'd held out hope that she'd be in here, brightening up the room with her smile as always, with a perfectly valid explanation for everything which would brush aside his worries and make him feel stupid in the process for not having thought of that in the first place.

But she wasn't here.

A wave of paranoia crashed on top of him. Was she upset with him for some reason? Had she really heard him this morning, and hurried off because of something he'd done? He racked his brain, trying to remember something, _anything_ he'd done yesterday that could even slightly warrant this response from her, without success.

"You okay, Jon?" Natsuki asked, laying down her manga on the desk, looking at him questioningly. "You look troubled."

He couldn't exactly tell her about the paranoid thoughts zooming through his brain, faster than a speeding bullet. He was self-aware enough to be able to tell how irrational they were, even if they still managed to bother him, and there was no need to drag Natsuki into it.

"It's nothing." He said, trying to force a smile onto his face. "But thanks for asking. Have you seen Sayori today?"

"Briefly." Natsuki said, picking up her manga again. "Just the back of her walking to class. She'll be here in a bit, I guarantee. I'm pretty sure she'd rather run barefoot across broken glass than miss a Club session. She's just a little late today."

It was hard for Jon to be reassured by her confident words, not convinced by her analysis of Sayori when she'd seemingly acted so out of character today.

_Don't be obsessive, Jon. There is most likely a natural explanation to this that you didn't consider. Just breathe._

"Hello, Damian." Came Yuri's voice, and Jon turned his head to see that the tall girl had picked herself up from the floor to greet his friend. He wasn't sure if he was happy for this particular distraction from the mystery of Sayori, seeing how the two had left things off yesterday. A movement out of the corner of his eye told him that Natsuki had straightened up as well, noticing the confrontation.

"Hi." Came Damian's short reply, without any hint of trepidation in his voice, speaking in his usual bored deadpan.

Jon was tempted to go over and hit him. He'd promised he would apologise.

"I- I got something new to read for myself." Yuri said, showing off her book with a dark green cover to Damian. Jon noticed her hands were trembling, ever so slightly. "S-so I won't read Portrait of M-Markov outside of our Club sessions. Th-that way, we can experience the b-book t-together."

There was something about her voice that Jon couldn't quite put his finger on. Something different, not a part of her usual nervousness, though that was clearly present too. He wondered if it was fear of another potential outburst from Damian, but it didn't sound quite like she was afraid of angering him, exactly. A fear of him doing something else, maybe?

"I see." Damian said, glancing briefly at the cover, then turning his eyes back on Yuri, still with that unimpressed look in his eyes. Then, he took a deep breath.

"Yuri, it has come to my attention that a certain few of my actions and statements from yesterday, on the surface level, could possibly be misinterpreted as derogatory and disparaging towards yourself in particular, and I would just like to clear up that any offense you might have derived from my behaviour, was a hundred percent purely unintentional, and I apologize if you gained any grievances from them."

Damian stopped talking, looking expectantly up at Yuri. Jon blinked.

At first, he hadn't even realized what he'd been saying, his monotone and downright robotic voice making it sound like Damian had rehearsed it for days in the mirror, which made the meaning unclear at first. It was only when the stream of words had stopped that Jon finally got an idea of what he'd just said.

_Was that his idea of a heartfelt apology?_

He turned his head towards Natsuki behind him to see if she had witnessed the same thing as him. He met her eyes, which were wide in disbelief at Damian's spiel, her mouth half-open in surprise.

"O-oh." Yuri said, seemingly struggling to take it in as well. "Th-that's okay. I- I didn't even notice you saying anything c-controversial yesterday, so I doubt it was that bad. And besides, n-nothing you do or say could ever make me upset."

She finished her sentence by chuckling at a volume just a bit too loud to make her statement sound at all believable.

"Good to hear." Damian said, shooting a glare at Jon, as if to say 'see?' "Glad we could move past that without further incident."

"You shouldn't be so quick to forgive him that easily." Natsuki spoke up, looking at Yuri with a slight frown on her face. "He was being a total dick to you yesterday, and that 'apology,' if you can even call it that, shows that he has zero regrets towards it."

"As usual, nobody asked for _your_ opinion, Natsuki. Are you really this incapable of minding your own, _fucking_ business?" Yuri snarled, snapping her head sharply towards the shorter girl to shoot her a harsh glare, her voice almost unrecognizable as it went from quiet and reserved, to downright angry, with no hint of her usual insecure stuttering in it.

It was such an unexpected change in her tone that Jon found himself taken aback by it, a sentiment shared by Natsuki if her reaction was anything to go by.

Her eyes widened in surprise, seemingly unable to believe what Yuri had just said to her, her mouth opening and closing as she struggled to formulate a response, without success.

"Hello, everyone!" Came a cheerful voice from the door to the outside hallway.

Everyone in the room turned their heads towards the source of the voice, to see Monika entering the room, her bright, green eyes twinkling at all of them as she started confidently walking towards the conjoined desks, flashing a wide smile at all of them. Jon thought she looked happier than he'd ever seen her before.

"Cut the chitchat, and take a seat, everyone!" She said, in a singsong voice. "I've just gotten some exciting news from the principal herself!"

Her chipper attitude seemed strange after what had just transpired between Yuri and Natsuki, like waking up from a dream and suddenly be thrown from one world to another. As a result it took Jon, and the others too, by the looks of their dazed reactions, a few seconds to comprehend the Club President's words.

Jon was the first one to recover.

"Uhm. Sayori isn't here yet. Wouldn't it be wrong to start without her?"

"She isn't?" Monika said, looking around the room to confirm the absence of the Vice President, her smile not dropping an inch. "Oh, well. She's probably getting a scolding from a teacher for falling asleep during class or something like that."

Monika giggled a bit to herself, as if the thought of that was especially hilarious.

"She'll just have to get the condensed version, when she decides to arrive. Now, I really need to tell you about this, so if you could all take a seat, please?"

Since Natsuki was already seated, still glancing over at Yuri at regular intervals, before darting her eyes back to Monika, Damian was the second to pull out a chair, at the far right of the table. Waiting until he'd sat himself down, Yuri took the opportunity to seat herself directly next to him, smiling and blushing as she did so. Damian glanced at her with a mixture of confusion and annoyance, before turning his attention back to Monika.

Realizing they were all waiting for him now, Jon hurried to take a seat himself, at the opposite end from Damian, placing him a couple of seats away from Natsuki.

He felt really bad, and more than a little worried about starting without Sayori, and actually seriously considering using a mixture of his Telescopic and X-Ray vision to look around the walls of the building to try and locate her, just to make sure she was safe.

He dismissed the idea. Even discounting the fact that using X-Ray had a habit of sometimes making his eyes glow at inconsistent moments which would be hard to conceal when he was as visible as he was now, it was still perhaps the most privacy-breaking power he had. He doubted Damian would have any issues using it to his heart's content, but then again, he _was_ Damian. What if Jon accidentally peeked into one of the school's bathrooms, or locker rooms, seeing something that he really shouldn't be seeing?

He wished he had as good control of his superhearing as his dad did, and be able to identify and differentiate the heartbeats around him. Supposedly that was how Superman always made sure Jon and Lois were okay, by keeping their heartbeats in the back of his mind, listening to them while he was out saving the day. Jon had never quite been able to do that. He could focus on people's hearts, sure, but he couldn't really hear what made his mom's heartbeat so distinctly different from, say, their neighbour. They were just a bunch of rythmic thumpings amongst millions of identical rythmic thumpings. He wouldn't be able to tell which heartbeat in this school was Sayori's, and which one was the Chemistry teacher's.

"Okay, everyone." Monika said, starting off the meeting with the phrase that Natsuki had called her out on overusing yesterday. "Like I said, I've just returned with word from the principal about the special guest coming for the annual Summer Festival tomorrow!"

"Oh, right." Natsuki said, voice monotone and unenthusiastic. "That's tomorrow. Totally forgot."

"The Summer Festival?" Jon asked, not following.

"Did you pay _any_ attention to the classes we've had for the last two days?" Damian asked. "The teacher's can hardly stop bringing it up at the start and end of each session!"

"Uhh..." Jon blushed, feeling awkward.

"It's basically a big party the school holds a few weeks after the start of each term." Natsuki explained. "They set up booths in the yard, serve grillfood, play loud music, that kinda stuff. It's super lame."

"And don't forget," Monika said, nodding at Natsuki's summary. "All the big Clubs of the school set up a big showcase at the festival, showing everyone what they're all about!"

"So?" Damian asked.

"So, after a festival happens, the Clubs who set up a showcase always get a big amount of exposure, which leads to them getting a bunch of new members the next day!"

Monika folded her hand into a fist, slamming it against her other hand's open palm.

"We have got to capitalize on this opportunity, and set up a showcase for our Club."

"Why though?" Natsuki said, her eyebrows furrowing. "I'm perfectly fine with the amount of people we currently have here. In fact, maybe we could even do with a little less."

She shot a glance over at Damian, who merely grit his teeth in response.

"It's not just to get new members." Monika said, still smiling. "We have to do our part to make Gotham High as presentable as we can, for the honor of the special guest the staff managed to invite this year!"

"Ugh." Natsuki scoffed. "Which one did we get this year? Another dusty professor who discovered a new type of rock a couple hundred years ago?"

"Not quite." Monika said, her smile widening. "Try a member of the Justice League."

Natsuki's eyes widened. So did Jon's.

"No way. How the hell did they manage to get one of those to show up?"

"I think it has something to do with the amount of money for charity we raised last February." Monika said. "We did beat the other educational establishments in America."

"That'd do it." Damian said. "The League is pretty big on selflessly donating money to charities, and 'awarding' the highest bidder with their presence is a good incentive to make people follow suit."

"Which one did they get?" Yuri asked, looking with interest at Monika.

"They're keeping that a surprise." Monika said. "Although they have confirmed it to be one of the original Seven. We can probably discount Batman, as he's not exactly one for public appearances."

"It's probably Superman." Natsuki said. "He's the poster boy of the JL, and the guy who always does publicity stunts like this. If the school wants to make an impact, that's who they got."

"It can't be Superman." Jon said, without thinking. "He's up in space currently, and won't be back for a while."

"How would you know?" Natsuki asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

Jon, realizing his mistake, scrambled to think of an excuse.

"Uh, I uh. Read it. On a blog. Uh, one of those superhero news blogs, that details what the heroes are up to."

To his relief, it seemed she accepted the explanation, shrugging in response.

_"Smooth. You're doing such a great job keeping your secret identity. Why not just take those glasses off and fly around the room now you're at it?"_

Jon glared at Damian, picking up the faint, mocking whisper aimed at him, seeing the spikyhaired boy smirk at him from across the table.

"Well, if it's not Supes, it'll be Flash. He's the second most public figure of the League, and constantly does all those charity races." Natsuki said.

"Bringing things back to the topic at hand..." Monika got their attention again, putting a stop to their speculative banter. "...because of how special the guest this year will be, we have to work extra hard to make the best Club showcase we possibly can. I was thinking of assigning us all with special duties so we-"

She was interrupted by the drawn out sound of the classroom door slowly creaking open. Yet again, everyone's heads turned to the newcomer, and Jon noticed his own heart starting to pound out of his chest when he saw who had entered.

Sayori stood in the door opening, frozen in much the same way as Natsuki had been yesterday, when she'd returned from getting her snack from the vending machine.

Jon took note of her appearance, which despite on the surface level looking as slightly disheveled and untidy as she usually did, with the unbuttoned school uniform blazer and crooked collar, messy short strawberry blonde hair with the familiar red bow looking like a cherry on top of a dessert, he couldn't help but notice that she looked slightly... off.

Maybe it was his mind playing tricks on him, taking into account her weird behaviour by not responding to his approach this morning and his subsequent texts, and thus subconsciously painting her unfairly in another light, but he thought there was something different about her that he couldn't quite put his finger on, which only served to make him more worried about his friend than he'd been before.

She was looking around the room, taking in the scene of them sitting by the tables, and Monika standing at the front, hesitating at seeing all their faces looking expectantly at her. She lowered her head, hiding her face away from them.

"Sorry I'm late." She said, in a very low, quiet voice, so unlike her usual loud, excited tone of happiness.

"Not a problem, Vice President." Monika said, her smile growing wider as she approached her Club partner, putting a friendly arm around her shoulder. "You're actually just in time to catch what I was thinking we'd all do today. You know how the Summer Festival is being held tomorrow, right?"

"Oh, right." Sayori said, trying to muster up a smile, which it didn't seem like she could keep up for more than a few seconds before the corners of her mouth shrunk into a slight frown again. "That's neat."

_There is definitely something up with her._ Jon thought, looking around at the others around the table to see if he was the only one picking up on Sayori's behaviour.

Yuri, it seemed, had decided to completely ignore the exchange taking place between Monika and Sayori, opting to keep her eyes trained on the boy by her side instead, a slight smile on her face as she took him in. Damian, in turn, had his head rested on the palm of his hand which was propped upright by his elbow planted on his table. It seemed he had gotten off at both stations, not paying attention to the conversing Presidents, or the daydreaming girl at his side, instead looking up at the ceiling with vague eyes, maybe, Jon thought, taking one of his power naps now that he had deemed the ongoing conversation beneath him.

Natsuki in turn, seemed like she was the only one paying attention, although not, he noticed, to Sayori and Monika, but instead looking to her side, observing Yuri and Damian with a puzzled look on her face, as if she were analyzing a particularly difficult math problem. Maybe she was still thinking about the moment earlier where Yuri had snapped at her?

He supposed that was fair. That had been a concerning moment, and he thought he would have a hard time getting over that as well, if his overwhelming worry for Sayori wasn't taking top priority in his mind.

He turned his head back to Monika when she loudly cleared her throat to get their attention again.

"Okay, everyone! Like I was saying, we need to work hard today to prepare for tomorrow, and I think the best way to do that would be splitting up into pairs. And I'm sorry to say, but this means that we won't have time to share poems today. Maybe tomorrow, if we get some spare time."

"Ugh, fine." Natsuki said, rolling her eyes in annoyance. "So, what kind of assignments would you like us to do?"

"Well," Monika said, unperturbed by Natsuki's unenthusiastic attitude. "I'm thinking we all go home early, and work individually from there. Firstly, we'll need something to entice the visitors to come see our showcase, and I have just the thing in mind for you, Natsuki!"

"What, cupcakes again?" Natsuki asked, raising an unimpressed eyebrow. "There's more to me than just a pastry-baker, y'know."

"I'm sure." Monika said. "But you do that one thing so exceptionally well, that it would be foolish not to take advantage of it. With your particular skillset, we'll have a clear advantage over the other Clubs tomorrow, I guarantee it."

Natsuki seemed to soften up at Monika's flattering.

"Alright, fine. I suppose I can scrounge up some cupcakes for tomorrow, if I absolutely have to."

"Glad to hear it." Monika said, and turned her head towards Yuri.

"Now, Yuri, we'll need something that catches people's eyes since we can't rely on the smell of baked goods alone to draw people in from a distance. If you can make a similar sign to the one you made to our door, but on a larger scale, like a banner?"

Yuri remained unresponsive, lost to the world around her as she kept staring dreamily at Damian.

Monika repeated her name, a bit louder this time.

Yuri blinked, then blushed as she turned her head towards Monika.

"I'm s-so sorry, I was just... lost in thought. Could you r-repeat it?" She asked.

Monika did, without a hint of impatience in her voice.

"Ah." Yuri said, nodding to show she understood. "Yes, I do believe I can accomplish that task."

"Splendid." Monika said, giving Yuri a thumbs up, before finally turning to face Sayori who'd remained standing by her side throughout all of this, staring resolutely at the floor, as though determined not to make eye contact with...

_Me._

...anyone in the room. Monika adressed her, putting a hand on her shoulder, prompting her to look up with her wide, blue eyes.

"I have a very important job for a person of your status, Vice President." Monika said, unblinkingly staring at Sayori, who'd normally giggle playfully at being adressed by her assigned title, but now showed close to no reaction to it.

"People are going to want to read about what they can expect from joining this club, but it's possible they'll be too shy to just directly ask us. What I had in mind is that we work together to design some super cute pamphlets to hand out to people coming to see us. I have a printer at my place, but to make them truly work, I'm gonna need some artwork from the best artist at this school." Monika said enthusiastically, smiling at Sayori. "And that means you."

Sayori stared back at the Club President, and Jon thought he could see an unmistakable hint of fear in her eyes before she once again lowered her head to the floor, speaking in a dull, timid voice.

"Sure. Anything for you, Monika."

"Thank you so much!" Monika exclaimed, throwing her arms around the slightly shorter girl, and hugged her tightly. "I swear, I have the best club members in the world!"

Jon found it strange how Monika seemingly hadn't noticed how distractedly differently Sayori was acting from her normal self. Maybe it was a result of how much she wanted this showcase at the festival to be a success, but he thought she could at least acknowledge that maybe Sayori wasn't doing so good today.

_She sure is ambitious._

At last, Monika let go of Sayori, turning her attention back to the table, eyes looking from Damian, to him.

"Now, it just so happens that due to Sayori's _brilliant_ judgment..." Monika playfully shook Sayori's shoulder at the mention with the hand that had remained firmly locked onto the red-bowed girl all this time. "...we are fortunate enough to have two, strong boys here to help us. I was thinking we could assign you two as some extra manpower to help us girls with our tasks, to make everything go faster and smoother."

"Good thinking." Natsuki said, smirking. "I knew there was a reason we kept them around, since it couldn't be for their brains."

She reached over to give Jon a friendly punch with her elbow, to show she was kidding. He couldn't help but smile despite himself at her gesture. He quickly sobered up though, and spoke up before anyone else could say anything, as he saw his chance to finally get some time with Sayori today.

"Could I help you guys with the pamphlets? I'm pretty good at lifting things, and if you're going to make a bunch of them, I could maybe carry them for you."

Sayori reacted to his words, raising her head half an inch, and even almost meeting his eyes before she blushed, and lowered her gaze to the floor once again.

Monika smiled her gentle smile at him.

"You're too sweet, Jon. But since me and Sayori are already working together, it would be more fair to the others if you went with either Yuri or Natsuki instead."

"Oh." Jon said, trying and failing to hide his disappointment.

"Honestly, I really don't care." Natsuki said, looking lazily up at Monika. "I can handle baking by myself, I've done it plenty of times before. Jon can join you guys for my sake, it's really not an issue. I think I'd actually prefer if I did it alone."

"I just said it wouldn't be fair." Monika said, with a bit more iron in her voice, even as her smile remained unwavering. "Don't be difficult, Natsuki."

Natsuki blinked at the firmer tone in the taller girl's voice, and for the second time today, seemed lost for words. She reacted by crossing her arms over her chest, scowling at Monika as she made a "hrmph" noise.

"Uhm." Yuri started, looking up at Monika as well. "C- could I maybe get Damian to h- help me with the banner? Based on his h- handwriting yesterday, I think he has j- just the skillset n- necessary."

"If he's up for it, I don't see why not." Monika said, giving Yuri a sly wink, as if they were in on a joke Jon wasn't privy to.

Damian's eyes went down from the ceiling he'd been looking at idly, returning his attention to the room at large now that someone had mentioned him. Jon knew he had caught every word they'd been saying, his hyper focus to his surroundings rivaled only by that of his father's.

Jon caught his eyes, and saw how his lips moved ever so slightly, whispering at a volume so low, that a normal human would only be able to hear him if his mouth was propped up right next to their ear.

_"Would going with her to help be a decent apology for what I did yesterday?"_

Jon was surprised at the earnestness in his question, and, making sure everyone was busy looking at Damian to await his response, nodded his head.

Damian gave a loud sigh.

"I suppose I could lend my assistance for today, if I must." He said.

"Oh, thank you, so much!" Yuri exclaimed, with barely contained glee in her voice. "I- I really appreciate that."

She raised her arm, and placed a slender hand on top of his own, which he had resting on the table. Damian turned his head as he felt her touch, staring at the gesture as if the concept of human contact was something strange and foreign to him.

Jon couldn't help feeling a little sorry for Yuri, who clearly had no idea what being alone in a room for hours with someone like Damian was like. He hoped Damian would at least try to act like he was a human during their time together.

"Alright, then." Monika announced, clapping her hands together. "Now that you've all been given your assignments, it's time to get to it! Then tomorrow, we'll bring all the things we've made, and help each other set them up! Good luck, everyone!"

They all started getting up from their seats at those words, the sound of chairs being dragged across the floor filling the room. Jon rose to his feet, looking towards Monika and Sayori who were already making their way towards the door to depart for their task.

Jon started moving swiftly, but discreetly towards them. He didn't want to seem desperate or to delay them, especially when this seemed to be so very important to Monika. But he didn't think simply walking up to them and asking Sayori whether their plan for today was still on or not, would be that difficult to answer. And he really needed to know, in order to dull his nerves.

He was so close to them that he began breathing in deeply to prepare himself, and was just about to clear his throat when an unknown force grabbed hold of his sleeve, and a familiar, demanding, highpitched voice could be heard behind him.

"Yo, Jon! You were supposed to be helping me, not them! You trying to escape?"

He turned his head to see Natsuki smiling up at him, an eyebrow raised as her pink eyes stared unblinkingly into his.

"N-no!" Jon said, feeling flustered at her accusation. "I, uh, just wanted to ask Sayori something..."

He turned his head back, and felt his heart sink when he saw that both girls were gone, having already exited through the door.

"Oh, crap." Natsuki said, a genuine twinge of guilt in her voice, and he turned around again to see her smile had been replaced with a frown. "Sorry. Maybe you can still catch up to them?"

"Nah." Jon said, suppressing a sigh of deep disappointment. It would seem _really_ desperate to race them down the hallway to ask her the thing he wanted. Plus, if what he feared deep down was true, and the plan was called off, he would look really, really stupid in front of Monika.

"It wasn't that important anyway." He said, trying to ignore the feeling of the monster inside his chest, clawing at his insides while yelling angrily at him to fly through the walls and floors of the school, digging through the planks and concrete with his nails until he was face to face with Sayori, secret identity be damned.

"Alright then." Natsuki said, shrugging. "I need to talk to you too, before we begin."

"Shoot." Jon said, wondering what she wanted to say.

"If I'm being perfectly honest, I really don't want to do this." She said. "Working with you, I mean."

"Uh, okay." Jon said, unsure of how to respond to that.

"Don't get me wrong, I think you're pretty cool. For a boy, anyway." She said. "But I just really don't like the idea of having anyone over at my house, no matter who they are. Y'know what I mean?"

"I... guess I get that." He said, trying to relate. He didn't want to have anyone over at his place either, but that was more because of the fact that he was living over in Metropolis than anything else, and he doubted Natsuki shared that issue. "So, what do we do?"

Natsuki sighed.

"Well, I'm just gonna have to bite the bullet and get over myself, just for today. I don't want to get blamed for being the only one responsible for screwing up Monika's big plan for tomorrow, which is what would happen if I robbed you of your assignment. And, uh, besides..."

Her eyes fluttered downwards, and the light pink colour that could be seen in both her eyes and her hair now spread across her cheeks as well.

"...if I had to choose anyone to come over, you're easily the best choice. I don't know what it is about you, and I'm aware that we only met two days ago, but you just seem inherently... trustworthy, for some reason. Like, I can't even picture you in my head, screwing me over."

"Uh..." Jon said, feeling awkward at her confession. "Thanks. And, uh, yeah, I wouldn't."

She looked up at him again, her blush gone and her eyes squinting into his in a more recognizable "Natsuki" way.

"Still." She said. "I need you to promise me that you won't tell anyone where I live. Especially Monika. I've worked too hard, and too long to keep it a secret from everyone else to have it ruined now."

"Uh, sure." Jon said, taken aback by the fierceness in her tone. "I uh, promise."

"Great." Natsuki said, smiling lightheartedly as if they hadn't just had this moment together.

"Can I ask why you're so keen on the secrecy?" Jon asked.

"You can." Natsuki replied, keeping her voice level as she moved to gather up her things in her backpack. "And maybe I'll even answer you one day. For now though, all you need to know is that we all have some embarrasing secrets about our personal lives that we would prefer no one else found out about. I'm sure you have some too, if one was to dig deep enough."

She slung her backpack over her shoulder and gestured for Jon to follow. He shot one last glance towards the desk where Sayori had been sitting yesterday before she'd spontaneously asked him out, and sighed as he thought about how this day hadn't gone at all like he'd hoped.

"Yeah." He said, moving along to follow Natsuki's lead. "I guess that's a pretty accurate estimation."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big thanks to “Kariminal” for their kind comment on the previous chapter! I was so honored when I read how you thought my writing attempts were good enough for you to look past your hatred for Crossovers, haha. Hopefully I can keep it up, so you won’t be disappointed.   
> As for your second point...   
> This story is meant to be a sort of retelling/reimagining of the game if it was set in the DCU. Now, that obviously doesn’t mean I’ll be following the original game to the letter, and I do plan on having some pretty major changes throughout it, but it DOES unfortunately mean (as you’ve probably gathered from reading this chapter) that some rough times are ahead for poor Sayori. Sorry about that, but know that whatever happens next, nobody loves these characters more than me, so I will be doing my absolute best to treat them with the respect they deserve <3


	6. Hang In There Pt. B

Jon moved along the road of the quiet neighborhood, feeling like his heart had lodged itself tightly at the base of his throat.

The calm atmosphere around this place, so far removed from the hustle of the big, known city areas of Gotham, did little to ease his nerves, although it certainly tried its best by having actual trees growing neatly along, at aesthetically placed intervals to the sides of the sidewalk, small gardens at nearly every house he walked by, birds chirping merrily all around him, and, best of all, the architecture around this area seemed newer, more modern than the rest of the city, and as such it didn't have any of those gargoyles hanging from every single perch, silently snarling at him wherever he went.

Really, if it wasn't for the ever present cityscape looming ominously far off in the distance, he could maybe even fool himself into thinking this place was in Metropolis, since clean nature over there wasn't nearly as much of a rare sight as it was here in Gotham.

This neighborhood was like a safe space, a welcome place where you could be allowed to breathe, and retreat to after spending so long in the downright depressing big city. A place where everything just seemed so much... nicer.

How very fitting that this was the area where Sayori lived.

Jon raised his hand up to his neck, loosening the collar of his school uniform a little. He knew there was no way it could actually cause him any breathing problems at all, the soft red fabric having no chance whatsoever of choking a throat with Kryptonian durability, but he still felt vaguely uncomfortable having it tied that tightly for some reason. Maybe it was just him mimicking a gesture he'd seen many a time in shows and movies. Or maybe he was just generally uncomfortable with absolutely everything right now, walking along and counting the house numbers, regretting this more and more for each step he took, bringing him closer to Sayori's address.

He pulled out his phone, briefly unlocking it to check the time.

Half past 5 pm. Plenty of time for them to catch the movie.

_If the plan's not cancelled._

He shook his head to clear the intrusive thought of doubt from his head.

Automatically, acting on habit more than any coherant thought, he opened up the texting app only to be met with his own two unanswered messages and the icon of Sayori's filtered face, still with the gray button beneath it. He pressed a button on the phone, causing the screen to black out, signifying that it had been locked yet again, and deposited the device back into his pocket while he repeated Natsuki's words in his head for what felt like the tenth time since he'd departed her house.

After all the buildup he hadn't been able to help himself expecting a little... more, from the pink-haired baker's residence. When he had followed Natsuki into one of the more _Gotham-esque_ parts of the city, with all the litter and pollution and gargoyles one could ever dream of, he'd been surprised to find himself at her home, which was... completely normal. Roof, windows, walls, small picket fence, basically anything you would want from a perfectly ordinary place to live. Maybe a little small, but that was hardly a point worth the amount of discreetness Natsuki gave it, unless she was _that_ insecure about her height, which Jon honestly doubted.

He'd thought that maybe the problem would present itself once he saw the inside of the place, but when Natsuki had unlocked the door with a key she'd taken from her backpack, he saw that the place was just as unremarkable on the inside as it was on the outside.

And yet, the feeling that something was wrong persisted in the air, like an invisible, but oppressive blanket someone had pulled over the air. It wasn't anything with the decor or an intrusive smell, or anything observable like that at all, but it was crystal clear from the way that Natsuki had acted around the place.

She'd seemed... quieter, when they'd gone inside the place. On the walk over there she'd made her usual light ribbing, this appearing to be her preferred way of filling the silence between them. Jon had actually found himself enjoying her comments, since unlike Damian's taunts, these were balanced out so they were as much on her expense as they were on his. But they'd mostly stopped at the moment they'd entered through the door.

This could have been her just cutting the smalltalk to focus on the task at hand, baking cupcakes, but her quiet demeanor persisted, not just by her using fewer words, but also with the way she moved, raising her heels whenever she took a step, like she was attempting to make herself lighter, and the way she snapped her head back to look over her shoulder every few minutes or so, like a reflex she couldn't suppress.

When she'd gotten out the ingredients to prepare for their baking session, he'd attempted to break the silence by asking her if she lived here alone, puzzled by the lack of anyone else in the house. She'd had her back turned to him, grabbing some milk from her refrigerator, making it impossible for him to gauge her reaction, but she'd said in the quiet voice she'd adopted that she lived with her father, who would come home at some point tomorrow.

Her voice had a certain tone of finality to it, which told Jon that this was all she wanted to say about that subject, so he decided against prying any further, and from then on the only times they spoke to each other was when she'd tell him what to do with the cake batter, and him following her orders to the best of his ability- so to speak.

All in all, it had been mostly fun to to make the pastries, if just a little annoying when it got to the point where Natsuki had ordered him to whisk the ingredients together in a bowl. He'd found it difficult, like he always did when he had to complete physical tasks while observed by civilians, having to measure the exact amount of strength he put into it so he wouldn't do it so fast that it'd be done in three seconds, but also not so slowly that he'd look like a wimp. Unlike his other abilities, his Kryptonian strength wasn't something he could "turn off" like his heat vision and super hearing, so he constantly had to make estimations on what was normal for a boy his age to be able to do, to not give his true heritage away.

Eventually they'd gotten all the batter into a bunch of colourful paper forms, and after inserting the first three trays out of six inside the oven, they'd moved on to the sink to wash the bowls and utensils they'd used, with him washing, her drying.

They'd worked in silence like that for a few minutes when finally Natsuki had asked what was wrong with him. He'd turned his head, making eyecontact with her, confused.

"Sorry?" He'd said.

"You've been acting weird all day." She'd said, looking at him like she was analyzing every movement he made. "Normally I'd chalk it off as you being scared of being alone with me in my house, which by the way you absolutely _should_ be if you weren't already since I'm obviously extremely scary and threatening, but I noticed you were acting this way even before Monika gave us these assignments. So what gives?"

Jon blinked, taking what she'd just said in. He was once again reminded of Damian, the way she psychoanalyzed his behaviour being very similar to what the spikyhaired boy had done to him this morning.

He'd wanted for a hot second to fire the question right back in her face, since she'd definitely acted strange as well ever since they'd gone inside this building, but dismissed the idea as soon as it had gotten in his head when he'd considered that she right from the beginning hadestablished that she was uncomfortable having him over, and didn't want to talk about why, whereas he hadn't put down any such boundary himself, because why would he? It wasn't a secret.

"Weird?" He'd asked, guessing what the girl was referring to, but not wanting to admit to anything before he was certain they were on the same page.

"Yeah." She'd said, finishing drying off the massive bowl he'd just handed her, placing it to the side. "You've been very distracted, and oddly... dour. When I say something to you, I often have to repeat myself, and you don't laugh as hard as you should at my jokes."

Jon had smirked despite himself at Natsuki's accusation.

"Maybe they're just not as funny as you think they are?" He suggested.

She'd smiled back at him.

"Come on, Jon. There's no need to lie, since we both know I'm the unrivaled comedic talent of this Club." Her face had then relaxed into a more sober expression, and her voice had taken on a bit more sincerity. "You just seem really lost in thought. Something on your mind?"

He'd looked into her unflinching pink eyes, seeing the earnest concern in them that told him she was actually trying to look out for him, instead of the tough "I-don't-care-about-anything" attitude she usually had.

He'd sighed, thinking that maybe it would do him good to confide in someone else about his worries, and that someone might as well be Natsuki.

He'd then told her about the cinematrip he and Sayori had planned the other day, told her about how excited he was for it and how he'd thought she'd been too. Told her about how she hadn't answered his text this morning, how he thought she might have walked away from him when he'd called for her in the schoolyard. Told her about the way she'd read his messages, but still hadn't answered, and even put herself to offline. And finally, he'd told her about how odd she'd acted at the Club, like she was ignoring him specifically.

And after telling her this, he'd finally confessed what he'd been afraid of even thinking this whole day, that he'd done something to upset her, and now their plan, as well as their continued friendship was in danger, as he didn't even know where she lived, and she still hadn't replied.

After that, an awkward silence had lingered in the kitchen, as Natsuki considered what he'd just told her, and he'd been momentarily afraid that she was getting ready to make fun of him and laugh at his oversharing, but had been relieved when she without even cracking a smile put a hand on her chin, as she thought everything he'd said over with a serious expression on her face.

"Hmm." She'd said, before looking up at him again. "Okay, first thing's first, the phone thing can be explained pretty easily. Sayori has... a bit of trouble, paying attention in class. When she's not sleeping during a lecture, she has a bad habit of checking her phone instead of listening. I'm not saying this to be mean, but it is a thing she's known for and has gotten into trouble with before. What I think might have happened is that she pulled out her phone during class, got called out by a teacher, and then by the end was told to set herself to offline so she wouldn't get any notifications. Maybe it even got confiscated, that happens too sometimes. And Monika is pretty vocal about when we check our phones during Club sessions too, so now that they're working together, I wouldn't expect her to reply anytime soon. Plus, it's likely she just forgot about it."

Jon went over the explanation in his head, and found to his surprise that it made quite a bit of sense, and was something he hadn't even considered before now. Still, he had doubts in his mind, since things didn't quite add up.

"But what about all the other stuff?" He'd asked, frowning slightly at the shorter girl. "The way she looked up in the club, and her running away from me didn't have anything to do with her phone. Am I missing something?"

Natsuki had sighed then, leaning up against one one of the drawers in the kitchen.

"Okay." She'd said. "I'm going to tell you something about Sayori. I've known her for quite a bit longer than you, and before I say anything else, she's amazing. Much more amazing than people give her credit for. I'm sure you've noticed how she seems to radiate positivity, to the point of downright brightening up almost any room just by being there."

Jon had nodded then, recognizing and agreeing with this description of the red-bowed girl.

"Because that's just the kind of person she is." Natsuki had continued. "She wants to make absolutely everyone around her as happy as they can possibly be, because she's just that awesome. But sometimes, she can be a little too awesome, to a fault even, and forget about taking the time to make sure that she herself is happy, too. Because she doesn't consider her own needs to be as important as the ones of the people around her. She'll deny this if you bring it up to her, and say that it isn't true, but once you've known her for long enough you start to notice that her smile sometimes isn't as wide as it usually is, or that she'll look sad when she thinks no one's looking. She doesn't really like to have people worry about her, so she never says anything about it, but it's painfully obvious to anyone who pays attention. What you saw today was most likely just one of those times where it caught her off guard."

"It looked... uncanny." Jon had said, remembering the joyless expression he'd seen on her. "Almost even unsettling."

"Because it is!" Natsuki had exclaimed in agreement, throwing her arms out. "You spend so much time with her, and get so used to seeing her 'being Sayori,' that when suddenly she's not acting like a literal ray of sunshine, it throws you off! Because you forget that she's a normal human being, who gets bad days like everyone else! Days where you just have to give her a bit of space, and show her the same kindness that she normally shows you, even when she insists that nothing's wrong!"

Jon had went over her words in his head. Natsuki had a way of formulating her arguments in a very convincing way, to the point where they seemed mindnumbingly obvious, and he even found himself feeling guilty over not even considering Sayori's feelings, instead of putting all the focus entirely on himself.

"So... you don't think she's upset with anything I might have said, or done?" He'd asked.

"Jon, this is Sayori we're talking about." Natsuki had said, smiling reassuringly at him. "I don't think she's physically capable of being upset with anyone who isn't herself. I can tell you that she's been exceptionally happy this week, and the week before, even moreso than usual, without a hint of anything I've just mentioned to you, and she probably just wasn't able to keep it up for any longer. I'm sure what happened today had nothing to do with you, and that she is so frustrated with herself that this had to happen today, of all days. I guarantee you that she wants nothing more than to see that movie with you, if she went and took the initiative to ask you out yesterday like you said she did."

Jon had felt so much better then, letting Natsuki's convincing words of reassurance flow through him, accepting them as the truth. It made sense, and he felt dumb that he hadn't been able to reach the same conclusions. Hindsight was 20/20, he knew that, but still.

"Thank you." He'd said, overwhelmed with gratitude at having his nerves eased like that. "Really. You're surprisingly good at being nice."

"Don't mention it." She'd said, smiling. "Seriously, don't. I have a reputation to uphold at school, and don't want it ruined by people thinking I'm not a bitch."

"Fair enough." He'd laughed.

"Now, as repayment for this little impromptu therapy session, you can have the honor of getting those cupcakes out of the oven, before they burn."

"Copy that." He'd said, opening the oven and grabbing hold of one of the trays, slowly carrying it out and savoring the delicious smell of the rows of cupcakes on it before getting interrupted by Natsuki freaking out at him gesturing at his hands in shock. Looking down, he'd then noticed that he'd taken hold of the warm metal with his bare hands, forgetting to put on oven mitts.

After having had to pretend his hands were burned by this, and wasting a few minutes time running them under cold water at Natsuki's insistence, they'd finally called off the baking session with Natsuki giving him Sayori's address, assuring him that the Vice President wasn't nearly as fuzzy as she was about who she let into her home, and ordered him to go show her a good time, or else.

And that was how Jon now found himself looking up at the two-story house at the end of the road, the house number matching the one Natsuki had given him, and discovering to his horror that all the confidence the pinkhaired girl had given him, was completely and utterly gone, evaporated from his body at the sight of the building in front of him.

Like the other houses in this area, it was a very small, cozy, two-story white building, a small white picket fence surrounding it with a few green bushes leaning up against it. He looked up to see a half-open window on the second floor, and guessed that was where her room was located, with her probably letting in some fresh air on this hot summer day.

He could imagine himself enjoying living at a place like this. He had come to like their apartment in Metropolis, much more than he'd initially thought he would after his mom and dad decided to move away from Hamilton County, but this seemed like the perfect middle ground between the peace, quiet and loneliness of their previous farmhouse and the exposed, cramped but also charming citylive he currently lived in. It was a really nice place.

And yet, at this moment, the innocuous building in front of him was filling him with the deepest dread, to the point where he was standing frozen in front of the fencegate, unable to move at the thought of entering and meeting up with the girl inside.

_This is so stupid!_ He thought at himself, frustrated. _It's just like last Monday where I opened the door to the Club! I was nervous back then too, and everything turned out fine. Just do it again and get it over with!_

But it had been different back then. The stakes hadn't been as high as they were now, he hadn't had as much to lose. And there was the whole thing with Sayori's behaviour today, which no matter how he rationalized it in his head, filled him with doubt over their current relationship status.

_Then you really are an idiot, Kent._ He thought, noting how he seemed to channel Damian's speech patterns in his head now that he needed the extra push. _Natsuki explained everything to you, and it made perfect sense. There is nothing wrong with you two, she's just feeling a little down today, and it's actually pretty selfish to assume you're the problem. Not everything revolves around you._

And he got that, he did, but still, he couldn't help but think about how-

_You're Superboy! You can lift, and throw around boulders like they were softballs! How do you expect to be able to protect people from supervillain attacks when you can't even open the fencegate to a girl's garden?!_

Without thinking and secondguessing himself any further, even going so far as to shut off his brain entirely, muting everything inside himself barring the essential functions, Jon pushed open the fencegate and moved swiftly with robotic movements across the small gravel pathway towards the door to Sayori's house.

Jon went up the two-step stairs, finding himself directly in front of the door now, locating a small black box to the side of it, with a small white button in the middle.

The doorbell.

Without hesitating, and before he could think the situation over again and doubt himself even further, his finger made contact with the button, pushing it so the loud ding could be heard echoing from inside.

_That's it. I did it. No turning back now._

He waited for the moment that would come any time now, where he would hear the muted footsteps from inside before the door would be opened and he would be met with those bright blue eyes of Sayori, greeting him as they would both blush at the awkwardness of this whole situation, before finally inviting him inside, to show him her place, as one would do.

And he kept waiting.

He shifted his weight onto his other foot, trying to keep an open mind.

He waited.

Maybe she had fallen asleep, and hadn't heard him at first? She could be wearing headphones. Or a thousand other reasonable things that could have deafened the doorbell for her.

He rung it once more, and heard the ding from inside again. He had to admit, it was pretty intrusively loud. He doubted she would be able to overhear it even if she was wearing headphones.

He waited.

Anxiety started filling his body once again. What was it Natsuki had said, that had made such perfect sense to him? He couldn't remember. It was kinda hard to focus with his heart pumping so loudly, and the images flashing in his mind of Sayori avoiding his eyes specifically back at the Club.

He checked his phone.

A quarter to six.

Had she even come home yet? Or had she decided to stay at Monika's place, printing pamphlets for the Festival, with their plan tonight having been completely forgotten?

He opened up their texting app only to once again see the unreplied texts from him and her icon, still offline.

Maybe she was home, and could hear the doorbell, but didn't want to answer, like this morning in the schoolyard, and was just waiting for him to give up and leave again.

_Maybe she can't answer the door because something happened to her._

He shook his head. His anxiety was filling up his mind with intrusive, speculative thoughts that had no basis in reality whatsoever. He was the son of one of the most esteemed reporters in the world, he really shouldn't be jumping to conclusions like that.

And still, he didn't know what to do. Should he just keep waiting out here? If she wasn't home, that would be a long time for him to just stand there. Should he keep ringing the doorbell? If she was home, then the insistant repeated dinging would make him look incredibly desperate, not to mention annoying. Should he leave? If she hadn't forgotten about their plan and was just held up from answering momentarily, then he'd look like an impatient jerk.

Maybe he should try calling her? That _was_ what phones had been used for once, after all.

He quickly decided against that, however. They were nowhere close to that level of friendship yet. He wasn't a barbarian who would just give her a phonecall without warning.

He had no idea how to proceed.

_What do I usually do when I'm stumped in situations and can't work out the solution?_

Well, that answer was simple. He would ask the smartest person he knew for help.

But it was a bit too early in the day to call his mom, whom he knew did her best work at the Planet this time in the afternoon. Oh, she would help him without complaint for sure, and say that whatever he needed help with obviously took first priority, but it didn't feel right for him to interrupt her important work dismantling evil corporations by writing exposing articles about them with something like this.

So, when the smartest person wasn't available to aid him, the obvious thing to do would be calling the second-smartest.

Who was in space currently, trillions of miles away from Earth, on official Justice League business. No help from that front either.

He sighed.

Well, it couldn't be helped. Third smartest person he knew would have to do.

He opened up his contacts list on his phone, and dialed up the number he was looking for, placing the device to his ear.

The phone had barely gotten through the first drawn out beep before someone picked up.

_"What is it?"_ Came the harsh, impatient voice of Damian Wayne on the other end.

Jon grimaced. Why had he thought this was a good idea again? It wasn't like Damian was especially experienced in the empathy and social departments. Calling him for advice to sort out this situation was like asking Lex Luthor to please stop trying to kill his dad. It just wasn't in their skillsets.

But still, Damian was the only one he knew who actually had an idea of what Sayori was like, and knew about their plan, since he didn't have the numbers of any of the other girls. That had to count for at least something.

And in any case, he just needed to talk to someone right now to distract himself from the current maelstrom of turmoil his mind was drowning in.

He internally kicked himself for not asking for Natsuki's number.

"Hey Damian." He said, trying to sound casual. "How are you?"

_"Miserable."_ Damian said, shortly. _"Although at least now I'm finally out on patrol again, so I guess I'm a bit less miserable than I otherwise would be. But definitely still miserable, make no mistake."_

"Cool." Jon said, and now that he mentioned he was on patrol, he thought he could hear the electronic garble of wind blowing past through the phonespeakers. He pictured Damian probably standing broodily on top of a gargoyle high above the city, dressed fully up in his Robin garments, his black cape coloured yellow on the inside billowing dramatically around him as he kept watch over the city.

"So, how did your assignment with Yuri go?" He asked, although he thought he could guess the answer.

_"Miserably."_ Damian said, confirming his suspicion. _"I think what I had to go through over at her place makes up for any 'rude behaviour' I subjected her to yesterday, and then some."_

"You guys had trouble with your assignment?" Jon asked, keeping the conversation going as he tried squinting through the glass panes of the door, but it was designed in a way so everything inside was obscured to the point where he couldn't identify anything.

_"Oh, we got the banners made, alright. No problems there, despite the female's best efforts. I really think I'm done with her, Kent. I've lead the Teen Titans, so I'm familiar with how people that age can act, but she was somehow being more distracted from the task at hand than even Beast Boy and Kid Flash, and behaving more oddly than Starfire, who, if I may remind you, is an alien from another planet and Raven, who's the daughter of a demon."_

"Sorry to hear that." Jon said, wondering idly how much of Damian's judgment on Yuri he could reliably trust, since the boy's opinions on other people could be generously described as unreasonably harsh at best. "But I'm glad you at least gave her a chance. I'm guessing this means you won't have anymore reading sessions with her?"

_"I'm seriously debating whether I'll even attend the Club tomorrow, so yes, the snail-pace reading is out for sure."_

Jon sighed.

"Alright, I understand. Just... let her down easy, okay?"

_"Whatever. Why did you call me, Kent? Shouldn't you be in the middle of giggling up a storm at something inane with your new girlfriend?"_

"First of, still not my girlfriend." Jon said, blushing a bit as his heart started pounding again now that the topic was back to Sayori. "And second... that's why I called you. I'm standing outside her house right now, and she hasn't opened, replied to my texts, or... anything, really. I'm not even sure if she's home. I wanted to ask if you had any advice on what to do."

_"I think I'm the wrong person to ask. If I had any experience with understanding girls, then maybe this day would have made some semblance of sense. I don't think I'm going to be able to give any help on this matter, unless you want to know how best to infiltrate her domain unseen."_

"Right." Jon said, closing his eyes. He'd been expecting this response of course, but it still managed to fill him up with disappointment. "I just... really don't know what to do."

_"You probably just got stood up."_ Damian said, and Jon thought he could even hear the casual shrug in his voice. _"Sayori most likely wised up, and decided she didn't want to date you after all. You should just cut your losses and move on. These things happen, or so I'm told, anyway."_

"Y'know, you really suck at giving advice." Jon said, frowning. "And at understanding human emotion."

_"Never claimed otherwise. What do you want me to say, Kent? 'Go team?' 'All will be well?' 'Just believe in yourself?' I call things like I see them, you know that."_

"Right, right. It's just... I'm worried. Sayori was acting really off today. I don't even really care about the movie so much anymore, I just want to make sure she's okay. Did you notice anything about her?"

_"You forget. To me, all of the girls have been weird from the very first day. I have no basis for what's considered 'normal' behaviour from them."_

Jon rolled his eyes.

"Do you think I should use my superhearing? Just to find out whether or not she's even home?"

_"If it was me in your position, and I was heading into unknown territory, I'd have her whole place bugged already."_ Damian admitted. _"But perhaps I'm not the best example to follow. Grayson keeps going on about it being a 'breach of privacy' or something stupid like that."_

"Hm." Jon looked up to the second floor. "Her window is half open, and there's no people around. Maybe I could quickly jump up and look through it, without anyone noticing? Surely that's better than using X-Ray vision, right?"

_"Look! Up in the sky!"_ Came Damian's sarcastic voice through the phone's speakers. _"It's a bird! It's a plane! It's the peeping tom from outer space! Able to peak through small bathroom windows in a single bound!"_

"Oh, shut up."

_"Maybe Kent, just maybe, this is a hint for you to take. The bow girl probably got cold feet, and doesn't want to hang out with you after all. Perhaps you should just... respect her wishes?"_

Jon sighed again. He knew deep down that Damian was right, he was just being incredibly annoying and insensitive about it. And he'd known he would be ever since he decided to call him. And he probably would have reached the same conclusions without him. That still didn't make this suck any less, though.

He'd just have to wait until tomorrow, where hopefully he could find and talk to Sayori about what had happened today. Maybe she'd give him an explanation like Natsuki had that was so mindboggingly simple that it made him feel stupid for worrying so much today, and then reschedule their plan for another time. And if Damian really was right, and he had done something to make her intentionally distance herself from him, well, he'd just have to accept that as well. He really hoped that wasn't the case, since most of his happiness from this school arrangement had come from her and the Club, and he wasn't sure if he could keep attending it if he would lose his best friend there. And then if Damian kept his word and left as well, he'd be dooming all the rest of the Club since they wouldn't have the required amount of members to keep it running, unless the Showcase worked and they attracted more people.

"Maybe you're right, Damian." He said, and started moving down the small stairs with heavy steps to head home again. He turned his head, glancing back at the house where he thought he'd be having a good time with his friend today.

_Thump._

Jon blinked as he heard the faint sound of... an impact, like an object of a decent size being dropped on the floor, coming from the half-open window upstairs. It was the first sign of life he'd heard from the house since he'd arrived.

Was someone home after all? Had Sayori, or a family member missed the doorbell he'd rung completely? Or had they just ignored it, hoping he would go away eventually? Was it even a human that had caused that noise? It could just as well have been a cat, knocking something down on the floor.

His mind was speeding with possibilities for what could have caused the sound, each one more farfetched and unlikely than the rest. At one point he even considered burglary to be an option.

_Okay, maybe that's not SO unlikely. This is Gotham, after all._

This didn't feel right at all, seeing the seemingly empty house and hearing that. Jon furrowed his brow, getting an uncontrollable urge to get more information that could make sense of this situation.

"I'm... I'm just gonna give the place a quick listen before I head off." He told Damian.

_"Do what you want. Just be prepared for the possibility that you might not like what you hear."_ Damian's voice was one of complete apathy.

Jon lowered the phone from his ear, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes.

Then, he began listening.

Back when his powers had first started manifesting, his superhearing had easily been the hardest one to control and adapt to. He was lucky that they'd still lived on the farm, far away from the loud sounds of cars and construction in the city when it had happened and he'd suddenly been able to hear _everything._

It had still shocked him to his very core when he'd suddenly been bombarded with the one hundred times magnified sounds of the chickens clucking in their coop, the brushing together of thousands of wheatstrands, the creaking of the planks in their barn, the heartbeat of his mother, the spiders in the walls, everything hitting him all at once. It had been so bad that he'd spent a good three minutes in a fetal position under his bed, crying as he uselessly tried blocking the sensory overload by desperately mashing two pillows against each one of his ears while his mom had tried her best to console him, but it could have been worse. It could have been _a lot_ worse.

Once Lois had realized this was a "super-problem," however, she'd wasted no time in calling his dad, who'd arrived immediately afterwards, and without hesitation had taken him in his arms, flying him all the way over to the Arctic so fast that he barely had time to register the new sounds on their way, before they had arrived at... silence. Merciful silence across the empty white fields of ice and snow, with no humans, insects or technology for miles.

His father had then taken him into his giant, crystallized Fortress of Solitude, whispering faintly that the alien tech inside was completely soundproof, making it the perfect place for Jon to get a hold of his enhanced hearing.

It hadn't been easy, but eventually Jon had learned to ignore the sounds around him at unreasonable lengths away, and be able to focus on what was normal for the average human ear to hear. His dad had said that while he had chosen to be able to hear to the full range of his powers at all time the better to save people in need, he had no expectations for Jon to follow that example, which Jon's remaining sanity greatly appreciated.

By training his ability for months he'd eventually learned how to focus his hearing on specific things, at specific areas, when he wanted to, which helped him a great deal when he had trouble sleeping from the traffic outside his window, and could simply turn off that part from his ears and instead focus on the relaxing sounds of the leaves swaying lightly in the breeze at the park nearby.

Which was what he was doing now. Shutting off the sounds of the world around him, and instead concentrating solely on the house in front of him, searching for a sign of Sayori inside. He heard the faint creaking of pipes installed in the ground, the rustling of various animals and insects hidden away in dark areas. He heard the ticking of a clock from somewhere inside that must be the living area, and the low humming of idle electricity from what probably was a turned on lightbulb.

He shut off the lower part of the house from his hearing, and turned his focus instead to the upstairs, scanning for any human sounds.

He heard past the loud buzzing of a fly, zooming around the room and occasionally making impacts against the open window in its failed attempts to fly outside. He ignored the faint noise of a few houseplants which fluttered slightly in the breeze from the halfopen window, before finding what he was looking for.

A heartbeat.

Someone was up in the room, alright. There was no mistaking that sound.

But something was wrong.

This wasn't the normal, rythmic thumping he'd grown accustomed to hearing in the people around him. This was a downright pounding, moving at a pace more rapid than even the most terrified criminals he'd seen Damian stalk and pursue on the nights they teamed up on patrol, sounding more like it was trying to escape its host by breaking through the chest than simply serving its purpose and pumping blood. And yet, despite the alarming rate at which it was going, Jon noticed that it seemed to be growing... fainter. More and more quiet by the second.

And then he heard another noise. The sound of something dry and creaking, like the object in question was strained in effort. Like a... rope, struggling to support something heavy.

And Jon's very blood seemed to freeze solid inside of his body when he realized that the heartbeat, simultaneously going haywire as it seemed to grow quiet, was located somewhere directly beneath the creaking.

_No._

His brain seemed to shut down, incapable of giving a mental image to the sounds he'd heard, incapable of even thinking a single coherant thought as his body moved on its own, springing into action.

He closed the distance between himself and the door in a flash, grabbing hold of the doorhandle with a desperate hand, fully intending to rip it off its hinges if he had to, but discovered soon when the door opened up without any resistance that it had been left unlocked this whole time.

He flung it open, hardly even registering the loud bang that was made when it impacted with the wall as he kept his focus on the heartbeat coming from upstairs.

He looked around the room, searching for a staircase, not stopping to take in any other aspect of the place. He'd nearly decided to just fly up through the ceiling when at last he located it.

Zooming up the stairs in less than a second without even touching the steps once, he found himself at the second floor, turning his head towards the thumping, growing ever fainter, seemingly somewhere behind a closed, white door by the end of the narrow corridor.

It was no time to hesitate, or act gently. He flew as fast as he dared towards the door, flinging it open with a touch of his hand. It had taken him maybe two seconds in total to get from where he'd been outside, to up here.

But when he looked inside the room on the other side of the door currently being smashed against the wall from the force of Jon's impact, he knew that he had taken too long.

"No..!" He said, his voice no more than a croaking whisper.

_No._

* * *

Her body, pale and lifeless, clothed in a simple, white button-up shirt and a pair of red shorts, her bare, pale legs swaying underneath her, moving slowly from side to side as they followed the slight momentum of the...

_No._

* * *

Her arms were hanging limp by her sides, the tips of her fingers red with blood, probably from clawing at her own neck, trying in vain desperation to loosen up the tight grip of the...

_No._

* * *

Her pale, blue eyes, staring dead ahead without seeing, looking through him with a sunken expression, frozen in haunting sadness, seeming to blame him for not being there to help her, save her from the...

_No. This isn't real. It can't possibly be real._

* * *

_"Kent! Kent, what's going on? What were those crashes?"_

Jon heard the scratchy voice coming from his hand, still closed tightly around his phone. Automatically, he moved it up to his ear, still staring up in front of him, unable to take in the sight of what was slightly above the floor of the room.

He had no idea how long he'd been standing here for. Days, maybe. It didn't really matter.

"Damian..." He said, his voice sounding strange, and far away.

_"Kent, what happened?"_ Damian asked in a demanding voice.

"S-Sayori." Jon said, his voice on the verge of breaking. "S- she- she h-"

_Don't say it. Don't make it real. As long as you don't voice it out loud, it can't have happened._

_"Kent, tell me!"_

"She- she hung herself!" Jon blurted out, unable to contain himself as he broke down into tears, sobbing as his brain finally started forcefeeding him the information of what he was seeing above him.

It was indeed a rope he had heard, tied in a knot around the leg of a small bed by the corner of the room, its yellow covers in complete disarray. The rope trailed upwards, slung around a clotheshanger near the ceiling, ending a few inches below in what was unmistakably a noose, wound tightly around...

_No, no, please, don't think it, I don't want-_

...around Sayori's neck, her head bent at a slight angle as blank, glazed over half-open eyes stared directly into his without seeing him, the once bright, twinkling orbs of sapphire blue now faded into a dull hue, closer to gray than anything else, letting him know without a shadow of a doubt that no life remained in them and yet still looked as if they were aimed directly at him, silently accusing him for not preventing this, blaming him for not coming here sooner.

Her body was swaying gently, suspended half a meter above the floor, each movement causing another drawn out creak from the rope. The creaking was the only sound in the room now, the thumping of the heartbeat he'd heard having ebbed out completely.

A chair was lying flat on the floor, just exactly out of reach from her bare feet dangling lifelessly directly above. The thump he had heard from outside had most likely been her kicking it over. Her red bow was a few inches next to it, and he guessed it had probably fallen off her head as she'd flailed in the air, struggling to loosen the constricting rope before her arms had lost their strength and fallen down to her sides where they remained now.

_If only I had come here sooner. Why didn't I just jump through the window? Just a few seconds faster, and I could have..._

He couldn't finish the thought. He collapsed to his knees, overcome with emotion as tears swelled in his eyes, unable to look away from the tragedy in front of him, unable to even blink.

_How could I not have known? There must have been signs, these things don't just happen! I could have stopped this, could have saved her, had I just opened my eyes to the world around me! This is my fault!_

_"She hung...?"_ Damian repeated softly, lost for words as he took in Jon's statement.

Silence lingered for a second that felt like an eternity, with only another drawn out creak from the rope intruding on the quiet.

_"Okay."_ Damian said, his voice from the phone having regained his usual levelheaded tone. _"Cut her down Kent, quickly."_

Jon remained unmoving on the floor, unable to fathom what Damian was even saying as he kept looking up at what had once been his friend.

_I won't ever get to talk to her again. Never get to read with her, laugh with her, text or share poems with her. She's gone, forever._

_"Kent? Ke- Jon, did you hear me? You have to cut her down!"_

"D-Damian..." Jon said, his voice breaking, tempted to hang up on the boy. Didn't he understand what had happened? "S- sh- she's..."

_Dead. She's dead, never coming back, and it's all my fault. I could have confronted her twice at school, could have just ran up to her, if I hadn't let myself be intimidated by Monika's presence and the other students. I'm such an idiot..._

_"Jon, listen to me. Cut her down now, there's still a chance we can sav-"_

"She's dead!" Jon exclaimed, closing his eyes as the words from his mouth hit him harder than a truck, the reality of the situation being brought forth like a brutal punch to his gut. "She's dead, I can't hear her heartbeat! I was too late, and it's all my fau-"

_"SUPERBOY!"_ Damian bellowed, making Jon recoil from the sudden burst of fierce anger from the phone. _"There's still a chance we can revive her, but to do that I need you to pull yourself together, stop sniveling and cut. her. down. NOW!"_

Damian's order seemed to give him the strength he needed as Jon looked up, past the swaying body, and focused on the rope above her, pushing away every other guiltridden thought in his mind until only the mission at hand remained. His eyes zoomed in on the point of rope he could see just above her hair, and he felt them grow hotter as his tears started evaporating into steam, the world around him becoming bright red.

He ripped the glasses from his face, throwing them to the side, not taking his eyes he knew were currently glowing scarlet off the rope.

Smoke started billowing from the piece of rope he was squinting at until the fibers making it up blackened from the concentrated heat they were subjected to, and separated with a loud snap.

Jon blinked, and the room's colours returned to normal as he turned off his heat vision, and could safely turn his gaze towards the girl who was currently descending in slowmotion towards the floor, the burnt rope no longer holding her up.

Jon got to his feet and postioned himself beneath her, goosebumps littering his flesh as his hands made contact with her cold skin when he caught her, one arm underneath her legs, and the other behind her back, making sure his hand kept her head steady, supporting it.

He lowered her gently, placing her still unmoving body on the floor, and slid his hands from underneath her to place his fingers around the severed noose still hugging her throat. He avoided looking into her empty eyes as he pulled at the sides of the rope, causing it to snap apart as if it was a rubber band, freeing her throat which apart from a big, angry red mark littering it where the rope had been, sported various smaller scratches from where her nails had cut into her skin, still bleeding slightly.

She still wasn't breathing, and her heart remained silent.

"She's down." He told Damian in an automatic voice, not daring to hope for the best against these odds. "What now?"

_"If she's a part of the statistics for the majority of hang victims, it's likely that she didn't jump from a high enough point and snapped her neck, instead letting herself be slowly strangled."_ Damian said, and Jon could feel shivers traveling down his spine at the boy's methodical description. _"Which is good, since that means we still have a shot at saving her. What you need to do, is breathe down her mouth twice before pressing down on her chest thirty times, then repeat the process."_

Jon looked over at the lifeless girl, hesitating a bit at the prospect of putting his mouth on hers.

"Uh, Damian, I don't know if-"

_"Superboy, do you WANT her to die?! Would that be better than risking the possibility of exchanging saliva with her for you? You're literally her only hope right now, so grow up, and be a hero!"_

Jon furrowed his brows in determination. Damian was right, and he was being childish and selfish. He bent his head down low over Sayori's face, swallowing his fear as he met her eyes, before opening her mouth with his hand, closed his eyes, and locked his lips together with hers.

Like the rest of her body, they felt cold.

He released a breath down her mouth.

_"Watch for her chest to rise after the first breath."_ He heard Damian's voice from the phone by his side. _"When it does, give her another one, then start the chest compressions."_

Jon glanced down, seeing Sayori's chest slowly expanding. He bent down again, and released another breath into her mouth. Then, he shifted position, placing two hands on the middle of her chest, pushing down rythmically.

"1... 2... 3... 4..." He began counting.

_"Don't be discouraged if nothing happens. Just keep going at it."_ Damian said. _"It can take a while, and yes, it is scary, but no matter what, don't quit doing it until I say so."_

Jon had to work extra hard on keeping his powers in check as he did this, since the stakes were a fair bit higher than they had been over at Natsuki's. He couldn't do this too fast and not let her body get the chance to catch up. He couldn't press too hard and crush her ribs. He couldn't breathe too hard and freeze her lungs. If he wanted to have any chance of saving her, he had to work hard on being as normal as he possibly could. His powers, so often the deciding factor for the lives he saved, were his biggest disadvantage right at this moment.

Finishing counting to thirty, he once again bent down to give two rescue breaths, and started pressing down on her chest again.

"28... 29... 30... come on!" He said, frustrated at the lack of effect this seemed to have, before diving down to breathe again.

_"Don't lose hope. Keep going at a normal pace."_ Damian said.

Jon clung desperately to his voice, the calm tone of the boy doing a lot to keep him from breaking down and start crying again.

_You got this. You will save her. There's nothing you can't do. You're Superboy._

"29... 30..." He'd lost track of how many times he'd done this when he once again bent down to breathe. He released a rescue breath, and was shocked to his very core when he felt her body jolt against his, her previously limp body suddenly tensing, reacting, moving on its own. He recoiled away from her, giving her space as he saw her eyes widen, regaining their former focus, taking in the sight of him with a look of confusion and incomprehension.

He was panting heavily, sitting across from her as he himself struggled to understand what he was seeing, which to him was nothing short of an actual miracle. He had been _so_ sure she was beyond saving, and there she was, coughing hoarsely as she tried to breathe, her heart thumping quickly in her chest once again, restarted by Jon's efforts.

_"Things got quiet. What's happening, Jon?"_ Came Damian's voice from the phone on the floor.

Without taking his eyes off Sayori, as though scared she would revert back to her lifeless form if he so much at blinked, Jon reached over to grab the device, putting it to his ear.

"It worked." He said, breathlessly. "She's breathing."

A wave of static could be heard over the speakers, as Damian released a rather uncharacteristic sigh of relief.

_"Good work, Jon."_

"Thank you." Jon said, his eyes beginning to swell with tears of gratitude as he kept looking transfixed at the girl in front of him, trying to push herself upright, still coughing at regular intervals, looking horribly pale and wearing that terrible mark on her neck, but still, unmistakably alive, as she finally got up into a sitting position, leaning her back up against the bed behind her. "Thank you so much."

_"Go."_ Damian said. _"Be there for her. Get her whatever she needs."_

He hung up, and his voice was replaced with a long, toneless beep on the phone, before Jon pressed a button, bringing the device to merciful silence.

He lowered his hand, keeping his eyes on Sayori, who was taking brief, rattling breaths, over half of which triggered a small cough. He still had trouble believing what he was witnessing, what he had done. Usually when he saved people, it was from physical, tangible stuff like burning buildings, earthquakes, alien invasions. Simple stuff. Scenarios where all he needed to do was fly in, sweep up the victim in his arms, and get them to safety. This was quite a bit more complicated than that.

He realized soon enough that he hadn't said a word to Sayori yet. In truth, he wasn't sure what to say. How did one even begin to know how to respond to a situation like this?

It didn't matter. He had to break the silence, had to take the initiative to say something, _anything,_ instead of just sitting there, staring at her like a creep. He took a deep breath, gathering his courage.

"Are- are you okay?"

She raised her gaze to look up at him, seemingly taken aback by the sudden question, coughing twice. He cringed, inwardly.

_She just tried to hang herself. Do you THINK she's okay?_

"Do- Can I get you anything?" He tried again, attempting a reassuring smile that probably just came across as a grimace. "Whatever you need, just say so."

She opened her mouth, probably to try and give a response, but erupted instead into a fit of hoarse, raspy coughs, shaking her entire body, as she bent over from the sheer force of the body spasms.

Jon got to his feet, qickly walking over to awkwardly place his arms on her shoulders in an attempt to steady her.

"It's okay, don't try to speak." He said, trying his best to think about what she might need right now, before settling on one idea. "Uh, can I get you some water? Just nod, or shake your head. Do you need water?"

She gave him a sideway glance, her eyes looking wide, and scared. Jon kept his smile up, in an attempt to hide his own fear, wanting her to see someone she could trust and rely on right now, someone he most definitely didn't feel like at the moment.

Eventually, she nodded.

"Okay. Be right back."

He forced his eyes away from Sayori as he rushed towards the door to the narrow hallway, feeling the anxiety take hold of him again as soon as he no longer had her in his sight. He ran at superspeed down to the kitchen, opening up a bunch of drawers at random until he found the one containing glasses, and quickly grabbed hold of one, before turning on the tap in the kitchen sink, to draw her a glass of water. Still having his superspeed activated, he noted how painfully slowly the water erupted from the faucet, the stream moving at a snail's pace into the glass, but he did not dare turn his speed perception off as long as Sayori was up there all alone, again.

When the glass had finally been filled up decently, he turned off the tap, and had run up the stairs again before the remaining water from the faucet could even hit the sink. Time returned to normal as he headed inside the room again, his heart pounding when he saw Sayori still sitting leaned up against the bed, lightly coughing, not having had the time to even get out of the position she'd been in when he'd left.

He sat down by her side, and was about to hand her the glass when suddenly he realized that in rushing like he had, the water hadn't had the time to properly run and turn cold, making the refreshment he was about to offer Sayori lukewarm at best.

He quickly lowered his head to blow lightly at the glass in his hand, littering the surface of it with crystals of frost, stopping just before the liquid reached freezing temperature.

"Here." He said, handing her the glass.

If she noticed anything odd about how quickly he'd gotten the glass, she didn't show it. She accepted the glass, raising it to her lips, and drank. She managed to empty it, although a few persistant coughs still made her spill some on her white shirt.

Jon gently took hold of the empty glass in her hand, placing it on the floor next to him so she wouldn't have to worry about keeping it in her hand.

"Thank you, Jon."

Jon turned his head, caught off guard by Sayori's voice. It was very low, to the point of being a whisper, and he guessed she was trying not to trigger another coughing fit, unsuccesfully. Two more escaped her mouth.

Was she thanking him for fetching the water, or saving her from the noose? Or both, at the same time? Either way, his reply would be the same.

"It's no problem. No problem at all."

They sat like that for a few minutes, leaned up against the bed on the floor, both not saying anything.

"I- I'm sorry." Sayori whispered, breaking the silence. Jon saw her turn her head away from him, hiding her face. "For you to see my room being such a mess. And, uh. _That."_

She gestured towards the ceiling with a finger, the severed rope still dangling from the hanger, her meaning ringing crystal clear.

Jon wanted to repeat himself, telling her that she had nothing to be sorry for, that it "hadn't been a problem at all." Perhaps sprinkle in some inspirational lines from one of his dad's speeches to maybe brighten the mood, however unlikely that seemed. He wanted nothing more than to pretend none of what had happened in the last few minutes had actually taken place, go back to the way things were, and see if they could still catch that movie.

But he couldn't. Whether he liked it or not, things had changed now, and no amount of wishful thinking could reset things back to normal between them.

The horrifying sight that had met him of her lifeless body hanging from the room, staring blankly at him with those empty eyes was still flashing before his mind, providing him with endless unwelcome reminders of those terrible minutes where he'd been convinced she would be gone from this world forever. He suspected he would continue to be haunted by that image for the rest of his life.

And ever since he'd opened that door, no, ever since that moment in the school yard this morning where she'd ignored his call, a question had popped into his mind, a question that had lingered, growing stronger and more insistent throughout the day, reaching the all-consuming level it had when he'd seen that noose around her neck.

He didn't want to ask the question, wanted nothing more than to keep it unvoiced for the rest of time, hoping they could move past this, and never bring it up again. He felt selfish for even thinking it, since he was sure that Sayori wouldn't want to talk about it should he ask, and he was _certain_ that he wouldn't like the answer she'd give.

But he had to know.

"Why?" He asked, looking straight at the side of her head, still turned away from him. He fought hard to suppress the tears he could feel swelling up in his eyes. "Why did you do it?"

He just couldn't understand. Natsuki's explanation earlier had lowered the volume of the question a bit, but it had still floated around at the back of his head only to return to him now at full force. Having bad days and wanting to hide it from other people didn't lead to suddenly taking your own life like this, so suddenly, without buildup. Especially not after having been so happy the day prior and making movie plans with a friend. It didn't make any sense to him whatsoever, and he just needed something, anything to try to understand this and get some kind of explanation.

Sayori seemed to flinch at his inquiry, and he felt strong guilt surging within him for asking such a simple, yet difficult question. She slowly turned her head towards him, and he was met with a face so barren of any positive emotions, that he found himself wishing he'd just kept his mouth shut. Her eyes, having regained their blue colour, but with none of the twinkling sparkles that had made them so vibrant before, were blank with tears, streaming down her cheeks, leading his gaze downwards to the giant mark on her neck, the bloody wounds from her nails around it having started to dry up. This combined with the lack of a bow on her head made her look almost totally unrecognizable from the girl he'd thought he knew.

He steeled himself, even as he felt like bawling his own eyes out. He'd opened this can of worms, and had to hear her out now.

"I couldn't see an end in sight." She said, her raspy voice making the phrase so much worse than it already was. "I- I've always had a hard time f-feeling happy, since before I can even remember. Always felt my mood darken even when there wasn't any reason to, like invisible rainclouds following me around everywhere. I'm sorry if that's a bad way to explain it, I hardly even understand it myself."

"It's fine, don't worry about it." Jon said, trying to sound reassuring. "I think I get it."

"I- I thought I was getting better." Sayori went on. "Ever since I joined the Literature Club, something happened to me. I don't know what it was about, but for every day I attended the Club, I started actually feeling... better. Like just being in the room with Yuri, Natsuki and Monika was making me happier for every second that went by. A-and then you and Damian joined, and everything just seemed perfect and great. I- I was starting to think I was finally becoming normal. B-but then, it suddenly returned full force y-yesterday, after we talked. It was so s-sudden and without warning, rhyme or reason, just... poof. Everything was back, the dark thoughts, the rainclouds, the lack of joy, all these negative feelings returning as if they'd never left. Except it was even worse now, since I had gotten that taste of happiness only to have it snatched."

Her lip was quivering, and she wasn't making eyecontact any longer, her eyes downcast. Jon wanted to hug her, tell her everything would be okay, but felt that anything he would say would sound completely disingenuine to her. He kept listening, even as he felt his heart breaking more and more for Sayori.

"I thought I could fix it. Thought if I could just get through today and get up in the Club again, it would cheer me up like it had before. I thought that if I just hid away and avoided people until I got to the Club and got back my happiness, I could pretend this hadn't ever happened. But it didn't work. As soon as I opened that door, everything just became even more horrible. And it only continued like that when me and Monika started working on the pamphlets. I thought there was no way things could get any worse, but they did. Things just kept piling on and on, my headache becoming so strong I couldn't even think straight. By the time Monika left to print out the pamphlets at her place, I just- I felt like I would never become happy ever again!"

Her voice broke, and she collapsed her head into her bloodstained hands, sobbing wildly. Her crying caused her to breathe abnormally, taking in sharp, shuddering breaths which in turn caused another coughing fit.

Jon couldn't take it anymore. He threw his arms around her, embracing her in a hug meant to comfort and soothe her even as he felt tears of his own starting to stream down his face.

_Stop it. Don't cry. She needs you to stay strong right now, not to join in. Do you think Superman would break down in front of the person he's supposed to save?_

He couldn't help it. Hearing his friend suffering like this... It hurt him to hear it. He could actually feel physical pain in his chest hearing her words, a chest that had shrugged off hits from a Lex Luthor in his Warsuit and multiple enraged Parademons from Apokolips, and yet was powerless to defend itself from this frail, sad girl.

"It's okay." He said in a hollow voice, as much to calm himself down as it was meant for her. He kept his arms wrapped tightly around her body, as if she might slip away from him if he didn't hold on. "It's okay. Things are fine now. You're okay now, everything is fine, and-"

"I-I'm not o-okay." She gasped, struggling to breathe through her sore throat as she fought against both her sobbing and the uncontrollable coughing. "N-nothing's changed. The r-rainclouds are still all around me, and I- I still c-can't feel anything that w-would make my life worth l-living. Even n-now, after knowing exactly how painful and unb- bearable it was in that n-noose, even now that m-my throat literally feels like it's on fire, I- I don't feel grateful for having been s-saved by you. I- I just want to die even more!"

Her words shook Jon to his very core. He released his grip on her, staring in disbelief at the girl who was now going through yet another coughing fit, still hiding her face in her hands.

"S-Sayori..." He started, hesitantly. "H-how can you s-say that?"

"I- I'm sorry!" She said, her faint whisper of a voice thick with despair. "I just- I can't hide it anymore! I feel like I'm gonna drown if I keep lying and fake happiness to ease the people around me. I- I just can't take it any longer! I don't want to keep living anymore, if all I can feel is... this!"

She continued her mixture of crying and coughing, while Jon looked on, uselessly, stunned in shock at her outburst, lost for words. What could he possibly say to her now?

"I'm- I'm so sorry, Jon." She continued. "I know I'm an awful person for saying this. I don't know why I can't just feel what I'm supposed to feel! I'm so sorry for being such an inconvenience!"

"Y-you're not!" He protested, loudly, shaken free from his trance, trying in desperation to think of something to say to all this. "We- we can't help what we feel sometimes, and... and sometimes things can seem overwhelmingly dark but we have to... to keep looking ahead at that light at the end of the tunnel! The night is darkest just before the dawn, and we have to do our best to never give up!"

"My night has gone on for such a long time now, and it just keeps growing darker." Sayori said, quietly. "And I'm just so tired, Jon. I've been fighting against it for so long, trying to see the bright side. I know it's such a cowardly thing to do. But I just- I just can't anymore."

Her voice was so devoid of happiness, so devoid of any hope whatsoever. Jon didn't know what to do, didn't know what he could possibly say that could convince her that life was worth living. When a person had made up their mind as much as it looked like she had, what was there to do?

Still, he racked his brain for a solution to this problem, going through his mind for every uplifting quote he could remember his parents saying throughout the years, every positive aspect of the various superheroes he'd met, trying to find something to tell Sayori that could make her rethink things. He thought desperately hard, as if a life depended on him coming up with something, because it _did._ Sayori was sitting there, talking about how she wanted to try and kill herself _again,_ and he was the only person standing in her way.

_Come on, Jon, think! There has to be something you can say to her! What makes you happy?_

Well, that was easy enough to answer, but he couldn't exactly use that in any helpful way with Sayori. There had to be something else, hidden away somewhere in his mind. The problem with having a life as eventful as he did, was that he wasn't really able to share them with people who weren't in the superhero community. He had so many amazing memories and life experiences as Superboy, but not really a whole lot worth sharing as Jon Kent.

"I'm so sorry Jon." Sayori spoke up again, pushing herself up from the floor, swaying slightly as she stood up, turning her back on him. He looked up at her, alarmed. "B-but I think it would be best if you left now."

"What? No!" Jon exclaimed, shocked, as he himself got to his feet. There was no possible way he could leave her like this.

"I'm sorry." She whispered, barely audible, even with his enhanced hearing. "I'm sorry for getting your hopes up. Sorry for making you think there could be something here, for making you think we could be friends. But it's clear now that I'm too broken and twisted to have stuff like that."

"You're not!" He exclaimed, closing the distance between them and grabbing hold of her shoulders to spin her around so she could see that he meant it. "You're not broken, and everything's not hopeless. You have friends, friends who love you, and want to help you. Together, we can get through this!"

Her eyes looked into his, and he saw to his horror that they were almost as blank and devoid of life as they'd been when she'd been in that noose, already looking through him as if... as if she was already dead.

"I'm sorry Jon." She repeated, raising her hand and lifting it to remove his grip on her shoulder. "I really am. But you should just forget about me. Forget about ever even meeting me, erase me from your life and stop worrying about me. I'm not worth worrying about, and after tonight, nobody will have to worry about me ever again."

Jon had to make a decision right then and there. There was only one thing he could do right now, only one thing that could possibly have enough of an effect on her to change her mind. It was desperate, yes, there was no guarantee it would even work, and doing it would mean sacrificing something so big, that it would not only impact his own life forever, but possibly the rest of his family's.

But maybe, just maybe, it would be enough to save Sayori, the girl whose very life was slipping through his fingers more and more as the seconds went by.

He didn't need to consider it any further. It wasn't a decision at all. Of course those odds were worth it.

He would have to show her something that never failed to make him happy, never failed to brighten up his mood however bleak things seemed at the moment.

"Okay, Sayori." He said, in a steady voice. The girl looked up at him again, a fearful expression on her face, like she was afraid he was going to yell at her. He did his best to keep his voice calm, and collected for her sake. "I need to show you something. Something I think you'll like."

"Jon..." She began, but he held up a hand.

"Please. Let me finish." He said, and she closed her mouth again, nodding. He took a deep breath, and continued.

"After I show you this, and if you still feel the same, I will do as you wish, and leave. And I... I won't stop you from doing whatever you feel like you have to do afterwards. But, I want you to just keep an open mind, and try to let yourself feel positive emotions during this. Just let me try and pull you out from those rainclouds, okay?"

"I don't deserve that." She said.

He smiled at her.

"I'll be the judge of that. Do you trust me?"

She hesitated for a second, before nodding.

"More than I've ever trusted anyone else."

"Okay. Close your eyes for a second? I'll tell you when to open them again."

She obeyed, her eyelids collapsing over her eyes as she stood there, looking like she wasn't sure of what to expect.

"Alright. I'm going to place my hands on you now." He warned her, before grabbing a firm grip with both hands around her waist, throwing away any awkward thoughts manifesting in his mind from touching a girl's body this intimately. Now wasn't the time for that. "Let me know if you feel uncomfortable."

"Okay." She said.

_This is the moment of truth. This will either save her, or drive her even further away. Let's hope for the best._

Still keeping hold of her, he started floating upwards, feeling his feet leave the ground as he ascended until he was just a few inches from the ceiling.

"You're... lifting me?" Sayori asked in a puzzled voice, her eyes still closed.

"Yeah." He said, awkwardly. "Something like that. Y- you can open your eyes now."

She did, looking with a confused gaze into his eyes, probably wondering what he was getting at, until she realized that they were still lined up perfectly with each other, even though she could clearly feel herself not touching the ground. Then, she finally noticed how everything in her room looked in relation to herself, and she looked down, widening her eyes in surprise at seeing herself suspended in midair with him, before looking back at Jon.

"W-what?" She asked, breathlessly.

"Ta-da?" He said, flashing her an unsure smile as he tried to gauge her reaction.

_My secret's out now._ He thought. _Please, let this work._


	7. Interlude III: Up In The Sky

_You're pathetic._

It had been a very strange day for Sayori.

She stared into the kind, blue eyes of Jon Kent, looking into her own expectantly, trying to get a feel of her reaction to this latest surprise of his that made the other unexpected happenings in the past few minutes seem completely predictable.

He'd found her house, despite her forgetting to share her address with him, he'd somehow managed to get her down and saved her from a situation that she herself had tried to make as unsalvageable as possible, and had done all of this even after she'd spent the entire day distancing herself from him and ignoring his texts, as if he wasn't actually upset with her.

_Everyone hates you, and he is no exception._

And now he was holding onto her waist with a touch that was both gentle, and surprisingly strong, supporting her entire weight with no visible signs of strain on his boyish face that looked so different, almost like another person entirely without those glasses he usually wore, as he floated there in midair with her, none of their feet in contact with the floor, completely unsupported by stools or wires, just his strong hands around her, and whatever unknown force that he was employing to fly.

Was this a visual hallucination? Had her mind deteriorated so much that not only did she hear things that weren't there, like the Voice, but see them as well? Was she in reality still struggling against the noose digging unyieldingly deep into her throat, with no rescue coming, and her mind making up some fantastical vision of her best male friend from the Literature Club using some made up, nonsensical powers to rescue her, even as her life continued ebbing away from her?

It _felt_ real- she could clearly feel his warm hands on her waist, and her throat, although still painfully sore and dry, didn't feel anywhere close to the literal hell it had endured under the noose's grasp. Did that even matter? Or was it common for the fantasy worlds one constructed during their last moments to include make-believe physical feelings in line with the visual and auditory imaginations? She wasn't exactly an expert on this topic, so she couldn't really tell what the rules would be.

 _You're not exactly an expert on a lot of things, if your grades are anything to go by._ Snarled the unwelcome Voice in her head which had made its return with a stronger presence than ever before after having taken a momentary leave of absence throughout all of the previous week. _But it figures, that even in a dream world where your club mates are flying around in the air, you still can't just let yourself be happy. That's just so, typical you._

The comment hurt, like it always did when the Voice decided to speak up. It somehow always caught her off guard with its insults, and it never got any easier to hear.

_Because you know it's the truth._

It was no use arguing. For one, like so many other things in life, she wasn't very good at constructing counter-arguments that held water, and two, whenever she'd try and speak against it, it would immediately increase in volume, and keep growing louder for every attempt she'd make to speak up, until all she would be able to hear was an all-consuming screaming of obscene slurs and abuse all aimed at her, deafening everything else in the world around her. Better to just try and endure it like this, than facing the alternative. Plus, there wasn't really any reason to try to argue. The Voice was right, after all. It always was.

She supposed there was one way to figure out whether or not this was real.

"Is this real?" She asked, feeling incredibly stupid like she always did when she had to ask someone about something she didn't understand, always feeling like she was bothering and wasting the other person's time. "Am- am I dreaming?"

The flying Jon smiled kindly at her.

"You're not dreaming. This is real life, believe it or not." He said, and let out a nervous chuckle.

"Oh. Neat." She said. She really didn't know how she was supposed to respond, seeing this. Probably not like that. "Uh, how?"

"Oh, uh. Well." He hesitated, and she instantly assumed she had said something wrong, like she so often did. She had a bad habit of doing that, asking dumb questions that threw people off because they couldn't believe that someone could actually be so stupid to not just get something as obvious as this. Jon just happened to be able to fly. Did she really have to question that? Wasn't it enough for her that he just did it?

"Sorry." She apologized quickly for her probably insensitive question. "You don't have to answer that if you don't want to. It was rude of me to ask, anyway."

He looked blankly at her, before frowning and shaking his head.

"No, no!" He said, looking into her eyes with an earnest expression. "It's not like that at all. It's just... you're the first normal human I've told this. I'm just a little bit nervous, that's all."

"Normal... human?" Sayori asked, again feeling dumb for not getting what he was saying.

"Normal, as in not a superhero." He clarified.

"You're a superhero?" She asked, her eyes widening.

"Uh, yeah." He said, grinning as a blush traveled up his face, faintly visible in the low light of her room. The sun had started setting. "Y-you know Superman, right?"

She nodded. Everyone knew about the Superman, from the countless videos and news clippings of the Man of Steel, making his bright red and blue costume with the stylized S on the chest one of the most recognizable outfits on Earth. In a world with hundreds of superpowered beings all over, Superman was the baseline, the one everybody, even the ones not into cape-stuff, had heard of, both because of his incredible powers, and the way he used them for doing good, whether that be something big, like fighting off evil world-threatening supervillain aliens, or just rescuing cats from trees.

"Well, uh, I'm sort of... his son." Jon said, still smiling nervously at her. "They call me Superboy. Uh, surprise?"

She stared into his eyes, seeing nothing but kindness and sincerity in them. She had been called gullible and too trusting in the past, something the voice would readily attest to, but even she could understand that the chances of one of the most significant and well-known beings on the planet secretly having a son that just so happened to attend her school, accept her invitation to join her and Monika's Club, and was at this moment in the house of someone as insignificant and unknown as her was unlikely at best, and bordering on completely insane to even entertain the idea of.

And yet, looking into his bright blue eyes, she couldn't help but... believing him. There was something about Jon, the way he said things with that earnest look on his face that sold his story completely. Even if he wasn't flying at this very moment, she knew with more certainty than she'd ever had about anything before, that he would never lie to her.

It was still a lot to take in, though. Her mind was working overtime, just going over all of their previous encounters and applying this new information to them, that she'd been talking, reading and laughing with the son of one of the most powerful men on the planet. She'd even asked him if he had wanted to go to the movies with her.

_And now the son of Superman is getting to see exactly how much of a sad, pitiful emotional wreck you are. He must be so happy, thinking he'd come over to have a fun time at the cinema, and getting treated to this instead._

It was too much for Sayori. Her head was hurting enough as it was, with that mysterious headache that just didn't seem to want to let go, but Jon's revelation was only adding fuel to the fire as she felt another painful throb from somewhere inside her skull, causing a sharp intake of breath on her part, which in turn triggered another coughing fit.

_Are you actually coughing on Superman's son right now?_

She quickly raised her hands to cover her mouth, catching the vaguely sickening scent of her own dried blood smeared across her fingers, as every cough caused her sore throat to tense up in violent pain, feeling like her very skin was being ripped apart.

"Are you okay?" She heard Jon's worried voice, but couldn't answer, couldn't speak past the violent spasms erupting from her throat. All she could do was keeping her hands glued to her mouth, her eyes closed as she waited for the fit to surpass. She could feel herself slowly descending, her feet making contact with the solid floor again, and Jon's gentle hands pushing her, guiding her patiently into a sitting position on something soft, probably her bed.

She felt a strong breeze brush past her, ruffling up her hair, and she opened her eyes tentatively, still coughing softly as she looked around the room to identify the source, seeing it was... empty, with no sign of Jon anywhere. She blinked, and before she could even begin to consider whether this whole thing had been a dream after all, another strong burst of wind rushed past her, and Jon had reappeared right in front of her, smiling as he held up another glass of water. She accepted it, noting that it was just as ice cold as the one he'd given her before.

She graciously accepted it, and drank, feeling the cold liquid dull some of the raging fire in her throat.

"Did- did you just use your powers?" She asked after lowering the glass from her mouth, remembering superspeed being a part of Superman's impressive arsenal of abilities.

"Yeah." Jon said, blushing. "Sorry if I scared you. You just looked like you might need some more water, and it couldn't go quick enough. I can go at a slower pace if you prefer that."

"It's fine. You didn't scare me." She said, taking another sip of water. While normally, a boy moving around so fast that it looked more like instant teleportation than actual speed would be a cause for alarm, she felt like she didn't have anything to fear from Jon, actually feeling at ease just with his mere presence. And she wasn't going to make him limit himself just so he wouldn't upset her own unusually frail sensibilities.

_Least you can do. You're already taking away his dignity, making him run errands to fetch you water like that. He could be a million better places, using his powers to save actual lives, but because of you, he's stuck here, trying in vain to do the impossible, and make you happy. He must hate you, Sayori._

She lowered her gaze in shame.

"Something wrong?" He asked.

"No, it's just..." She hesitated, unsure of what to say. There was no way she could mention the Voice to him, he had enough to worry about without adding another one of her imaginary problems to the pile. "It's... a lot to take in."

"Oh, right. Sorry." Jon said, and her guilt increased tenfold for making him think he had anything to apologize for. "I forgot how... _much,_ this can seem to normal people. I'm just kinda used to being around powers, so it doesn't really phase me as much as it probably should. If you have any questions you'd like to ask to make this easier to digest, I'd be happy to answer them."

"Are you an alien?" She asked, before she could stop herself. "From the planet Kryptonite, right? Because I think I once saw an interview with Superman and he said he was an alien so-" She cut herself off, blushing as she realized she was rambling his ear off.

_Smooth. He gives you this once-in-a-lifetime chance to learn more about the nature of his powers and you immediately ask if he's an alien. Truly living up to your status as an American citizen, you must be so proud of yourself._

"Sorry." She mumbled, hiding her face again in her hands. "That was a rude question, you don't have to answer that."

"No no, it's fine." Jon said, kindness in his tone of voice, probably as a mask to hide how offended he really was.

"My dad _is_ an alien, but my mom is human, so I guess I'm either both, or none of them." He chuckled a bit. "Damian calls me a hybrid, but that makes me sound like one of those monster guys from the science fiction movies. Which is probably why he does it. Oh, and the planet is called _Krypton,_ by the way. Kryptonite are the green rocks that can kill us."

"Oh." She said, even more guilt hitting her for bringing up what must be a sore topic for him and his race, mentioning such a dangerous thing, like talking about cancer or alzheimers in a nursing home for the elderly. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to say that."

"Hey, hey, it's okay." She felt him lay a comforting hand on her shoulder. "It's an easy mistake to make, you didn't upset me at all."

_He's lying. He's regretting coming here, regretting saving you. He's being nice to keep up his image, but he DESPISES you._

Sayori grasped her head in despair, wishing the Voice would stop doing this, stop sowing seeds of doubt in her mind that festered on as she kept thinking about them, eventually accepting them as the truth. She was already starting to think she could detect small traces of impatience in Jon's voice, talking to her.

She didn't want to keep him here, making him feel like there was anything he could do for her that would make her feel better, since she knew what a fruitless task that would be, but she didn't want to tell him to leave again, either. Maybe if she could just give him a smile and convince him that she was okay again, he would accept it and fly away, leaving her to her own pitiful existence, where the only one she could hurt was herself, and not spread her misery to people who didn't deserve it, people who would worry about her, try to help, and beat themselves up when they realized they couldn't.

But she found that she was completely incapable of smiling, incapable of laughing, smirking, or showing any positivity at all, really. In the past, although she'd still been an unhappy burden to society, unable to feel real joy, at least she could feel some amount of satisfaction in bringing joy to others, but now even that was gone, leaving her as an empty husk of a person.

It wasn't fair for Jon, or anyone else, to be around her when she was like this. She was unworthy of their attention, their worry, their love. She should never have inserted herself into their lives, making them care about her, or at least pretend to. Killing herself was for the best, really. Yes, it would bring Jon and the others even more misery on her behalf than before, but it would be preferable to what she was doing to them now, dragging it out and making them think they could solve an unfixable issue that really only had one permanent solution, no matter how many superpowers the boy had.

As soon as Jon left, she would finally be able to put an end to everything once and for all, finally be able to do what she should have done long ago, and would have succeeded doing half an hour ago if not for the amazing person in the room with her, who was way too amazing to waste his time on someone like her. As soon as he left, all would finally be well.

 _That's the spirit._ The Voice approved.

"Are you okay?" Jon asked, in response to the way Sayori was clutching her head, and she once again felt like a knife was being stabbed into her chest at hearing the worry in his voice, twisting around her guts as it let her know that she was actively hurting him by being this way. "Is- is it the headache again?"

Her headache.

Starting out as just a few minor annoyances happening at random points in the Club, it had grown steadily worse over the past week, before it literally felt like her very head had been violently split open during these last two days, getting to the point where she'd had to rudely ask Monika to leave her place early as the pain just wouldn't stop increasing. The Club President had seemed to take it well, her smile not having dropped a fraction, and thanked her for her work on the pamphlets. She'd probably been thankful of getting this excuse to leave her, since she didn't think she had done that good a job on drawing the artwork.

Her head, while still aching in agony, had at least mercifully stopped getting worse beyond that point, but it hadn't exactly gotten any better, either. She'd been able to deal with it pretty handidly before, the re-emergence of her happiness overshadowing the pain, and knowing that Monika and Yuri were experiencing similar issues helped reassure her that it wasn't just a "her" problem, which meant she could talk about it without feeling bad for complaining about something that was only affecting her. But as her joy had been taken away again, way faster and more unexpected than it had come, like bathwater going down the drain, it had just added to the evergrowing pile of things that made her contemplate suicide more and more as the only way out.

God, she should have realized that her happiness would be brief and temporary, right from the moment yesterday when she had felt that sudden, unexpected surge of sadness hitting her right when she'd talked about Jon's poem. If she had just realized that then and there, maybe it wouldn't have hit her as hard as it had. But no, she'd tried hurrying to fix her mood immediately by spontaneously asking Jon out to see a movie, attempting to jumpstart her happiness again, by forcing her joy to come back to her. And it had worked- for all of ten minutes she'd been as happy as she'd been before, faced with the prospect of spending time with Jon at the movie theater, before everything had come crashing down on her when she'd told Monika about her plan, and felt the sadness, the hopelessness, the _Voice,_ everything returning to her at once, as if they'd never left.

She'd been so shocked at once again feeling her mind in the clutches of her depression (she really didn't like calling it that, since she felt like it was insulting to the people who were _actually_ struggling with it) that she'd just turned on the spot and bolted away from Monika, like a toddler not knowing how to deal with her problems. Because that's exactly what she was. A baby. A pathetic, whiny, self-centered baby.

The Voice was staying uncharacteristically silent. Probably because it found itself in rare agreement with her.

Sayori supposed she had to answer Jon's question still lingering in the air, and not look even more incompetent than she already did.

She gave a small nod.

It wasn't really an outright lie, the headache was certainly part of the reason for her current discomfort, but she wasn't going to cry and whine about all these other issues she had to deal with. She'd already overshared way too much stuff with him, and he was way too caring about it all.

Another burst of wind, and then she could hear him from across the room, the sound of metal clinking letting her know that he was fidgeting with the clasps for her bedroom window, trying to open it wider.

Then, silence.

She looked up from her hands, and saw him standing with his back to her, looking as if he was in a trance, staring out of the now wide open window as if he was contemplating something. She hoped he was finally deciding to leave her be.

He moved again, turning his head to glance at her, a thoughtful expression on his face. Without the glasses, it was like the shy, nervous boy from school was gone, replaced by someone larger than life, like an actual, real life hero.

A hero far too good for someone like her.

She blinked and he was suddenly right in front of her, the residual windburst from his movement flowing over her. She was reluctantly reminded of those trashy teen romance movies she was ashamed to admit she'd watched once, all five films in one sitting, about vampires who also moved faster than the eye could follow. But it was nothing like that really, those guys had been really creepy with those weird eyes and pale skin, and she had no idea why so many girls her age were so attracted to them. Jon's movements, while mirroring them in certain aspects, never came off as offputting or scary, but just... cool. And he did it so casually, showing that it was nothing to be scared of.

He crouched down to look her in the eyes, a hopeful expression shining bright in his own.

"I think I have an idea for something that might help." He said.

Oh, Jon. Couldn't he just give up on her, instead of going through so much effort in vain? Couldn't he just... let her go?

"Do you still trust me?" He asked.

She looked back into his eyes, seeing nothing but an overwhelming amount of kindness, sincerity and hope, all the feelings she longed desperately for, but had no way of finding.

Of course she trusted him.

"Yes." She said.

He smiled.

"The best way I've found to get rid of a headache, is getting some fresh air." He said, getting to his feet, and surprised her by sliding one of his arms underneath her legs, and putting another arm under her arms and around her back, lifting her up with the ease and gentleness of someone picking up a porcelain doll.

Shocked by this unexpected action, she struggled to formulate an appropriate response.

"W-what are you-"

"Just hang on." He said, and she felt herself being lifted further as Jon took flight, and started gliding towards the open window. "You're going to love this, I promise."

Overwhelmed with fear as Jon picked up speed, Sayori threw her arms around the neck and chest of the boy, clutching him tightly. She had meant it when she'd said she trusted him, but this was still very much out of her comfort zone. In the back of her mind she started thinking about how close together they were right now, touching each other this much, but there was really nothing she could do about it. She hoped he just didn't find it too gross to be so close to someone with her neck injuries and bloodstained fingers.

_Oh, you bet he does. Probably actively suppressing his gag reflex to keep himself from barfing._

Oh, so the voice was back again. Fantastic.

Jon maneuvered through the window with such an ease, despite the narrow frame of it that looked way too small for them both to fit through. As they approached it, way too fast for Sayori's liking, she flinched and averted her eyes by hiding her head in Jon's shoulder, but lifted it again once she felt the cool evening air on her bare legs, and saw that they had left her room, her whole house behind, and were currently ascending rapidly into the sky.

The sun had by now gone down entirely, painting everything in dark, gloomy colours. She could see the faint yellow lights from streetlamps and house windows below, shrinking ever tinier to the point of being small pinpricks against the darkness. She could see the big city from here, thinking it looked far more managable from this height.

Whenever she'd been forced to visit it before, on either a schooltrip or when visiting a friend's place, she'd been overwhelmed and stressed going into it, seeing the tall, black buildings, scary-faced gargoyles sneering at her from every perch, overfilled garbage bins flooding over into the streets, which were already crowded from the rush of people walking all over the place, who wouldn't hesitate to push and yell mean things if she got in their way. Going to that part of Gotham had always felt like her heart lodged itself in her throat, as she attempted to navigate the busy area.

_Sounds like you're blaming everyone else for your own incompetence on how to act in public._

But seeing it from this height, it was like she realized how small everyone down there, including her, really were. She could barely even see the moving figures on the ground, looking like the shadows of ants illuminated by the bright lights of the shop windows.

She also suddenly realized by the pounding of her heart in her chest that she was deadly afraid of heights. She clutched her arms tighter around the only thing she could, Jon, as she felt crippling anxiety looking down below.

Then, the anxiety shifted, and she found herself fearing that she was holding onto Jon too tightly, inconveniencing him. Was she? Surely his powers kept him from being bothered by the grip of a girl as weak as her, right? But then again, just because he couldn't be bothered by it, didn't mean that she should be trying her hardest to annoy him.

_Why stop now? You've already ruined his day, might as well just go all out and ruin his night, too!_

She didn't know what to do. She was scared of slackening her grip, but she was also scared of what he thought about her, clutching him like this. Really, she was mostly just scared of everything going on at this moment, and a small, pathetic whimper escaped her lips, unable to be contained.

"It's alright." Jon said, his voice sounding so calm and reassuring as he looked into her eyes with that kind smile on his face. "I've got you, there's nothing to fear."

She looked back, and wanted to be reassured, wanted more than anything to smile, and laugh back at him, showing some gratitude for him taking her to see all of this.

But she couldn't.

She averted her eyes as tears started swelling up in them again, as much a product of sadness as they were of her own frustration of that sadness.

She hated herself, Jon was being so brave and amazing, trusting her with his secret identity, taking her on this trip that few others could say they'd been on, showing her the hidden beauty of the city below, and she couldn't even do him the goddamn decency of feeling the slightest bit of joy.

Was she really this broken?

She looked back down at the streets again, feeling dizzy at seeing how far down there was. If Jon dropped her, there would be no saving her. A brief sensation of wind brushing past her whole body, a few seconds of flailing uselessly in the air, before she'd make impact with the ground, and it'd all be over, without any second chances. She doubted she would even feel anything, since her whole body would be instantly pulverized against the concrete as soon as she made contact with it. It would be much more quicker, and painless than the noose, in any regard.

_Ah yes, surely that's what Jon intended for you to get out of this trip. A better way to kill yourself, like the coward you are. You should tell him about this newest discovery, that'll brighten him right up!_

Why was she so awful? Why did these thoughts come to her like this?

Tears flowed freely from her eyes, coming as fast as they could be blown away by the wind.

She'd been happy, dammit! For once in her life, she'd been able to finally get a taste of what it felt like to be normal! Why couldn't it have just lasted for a few more _damned_ days?!

_You don't deserve happiness. You've always been a sniveling, moronic child, more concerned with cracking jokes than actually contributing to anything. You were given happiness for those few days as a way to show you exactly why you CAN'T have it, why you'll NEVER have it. To make you realize just how worthless your life really is. After all, how should you know just how messed up it is to not feel joy if you've never tried having it before? How else should you have seen that the only right thing for you to do, both for yourself, and everyone around you, would be to remove yourself from their lives, permanently?_

It didn't escape Sayori that the Voice was both encouraging her attempted suicide, and calling her a coward for it, but it hardly mattered. It had been well established that it wasn't there to be her friend, and was just saying whatever it could to make her as miserable as possible. What was she supposed to do? Call the Voice no one but herself could hear a hypocrite? It would just scream back at her with even more insults, and how would that solve anything?

She couldn't bear looking down anymore, as her thoughts seemed to just be torturously painting her mental images in excruciatingly agonizing detail of the red smear she would look like if she really did fall from this height, with certain parts of her body being partially whole from the fall, lying around the gore to make her identifiable, like a few fingers here, and a single blue eyeball there.

She turned her head upwards instead, but that was hardly better as she saw the gray, dark clouds above them, so much closer than they were from the ground.

They were the Rainclouds, constantly haunting her everywhere she went in her imagination, and now they were here in reality too, their looming presence darkening even the night sky.

She couldn't help it anymore. She hid her face from the rest of the world by nestling it against Jon's chest, sobbing wildly as she began audibly crying, feeling like the worst friend in the world, doing this to him, but at a complete loss for what else to do.

"S-Sayori?" She heard his voice, etched with worry as he saw and felt her against him. "W-what's wrong? Are you uncomfortable in this position? You can tell me if you want me to change anything in the way I'm holding you."

_Look at him being concerned for your wellbeing. Thinking he's to blame because you can't keep a lid on your whining. You know it's all your own fault, right?_

Of course she knew. There was never a moment of her life where she _didn't_ know. She was always deftly aware of the various negative impacts she had on other people's lives at all times. It wasn't exactly a new realization to her.

That didn't make her feel less guilty about it, though.

"Please." She heard the pleading desperation in Jon's voice, wanting so much to be able to help her. "Just... try and tell me what's going through your head. I might be able to help, and I might not. But I won't be able to do anything if I don't know."

How should she tell him? She barely even understood her own feelings herself. How could she possibly say anything that could make him understand?

"Please, S-Sayori." She felt her own heart break into pieces at hearing his voice cracking. He sounded so hurt at not knowing what to do. He'd said he was a superhero, which most likely entailed battling those monstrous villains she'd heard of from Superman's city, Metropolis, beings like Mongul, Metallo and Toyman. Those awful beings, willing to kill the innocent citizens around them without a second thought, and having the power to actually hurt the Man of Steel. She was just like them, wasn't she? A wretched creature, completely and utterly irredeemable, damaging Jon where it hurt the most- his emotions.

"Please... let me help you."

She looked up at his face, or what she could see of it behind the tears in her eyes, blurring the world around her. Even with them being up here against the dark, cloudy sky, she could still make out his blue eyes, still see his kind, round face, with his black hair billowing all around it against the wind. He wasn't smiling, instead wearing that all too familiar expression that she hated seeing on him: worry. Worry for her.

He'd asked her to tell him what was going through her mind, what was making her this sad. Where should she even begin? How she'd struggled to be happy ever since she'd been a child? How the reason she struggled to get out of bed in the morning wasn't because she was a heavy sleeper, but simply because she wasn't able to find the motivation to face a day she knew in advance would bring her nothing but more pain? How she'd tied the noose several months before, staring at it every day for hours at a time, before finally putting it to use today? How she'd thought things were finally turning around for her with the effect the Club and Jon himself had seemed to have on her, before everything had come crashing back? How the Voice had been with her for almost as long as she could even remember, making sure to remind her of these things every single day of her life?

There were so many things going through her head. Too many to list them all. Too much to bother Jon with. Too much stuff to worry him with. Too much to formulate in a concise manner. Too much.

"Too... much..." She managed to say, between her sobbing, hiccuping and coughing. She knew perfectly well that this wouldn't help answering the thing Jon had wanted to know in the slightest, but there was no way she could sum it all up accurately for him in any other way. Chalk it up as another item on the evergrowing list of the worthless and unhelpful things Sayori brought to the table.

She expected to see further frustration and incomprehension on his face at hearing her words, expected him to sigh in exasperation at her inability to describe her own feelings.

But instead, she saw him knit his eyebrows together, his face taking on a look of steely determination.

"Alright." He said. "I think I have an idea. Hang on."

She felt his hands tighten their grip around her, before he began rising further up into the sky at a speed a little too great for her liking. Panic started to grab hold of her when she looked up to see them approach the Raincloud, so fast that they'd be making contact with it in a matter of seconds.

"No...!" She attempted to scream, but her throat was too dry, and her voice came out as a hoarse croak as they flew right through it.

She knew it was just a cloud, and logically it couldn't do anything to hurt her, but she also knew that Rainclouds were never a good thing, that they always brought more misery, that they were always a sure-fire way of seeing when a day wouldn't be good.

The cloud was all around her, fogging everything, leaving a cold, moist feeling all around her clothes, her legs, her hair, her face. She knew that even if she dared opening her eyes, she wouldn't be able to see anything, not even the boy holding her.

And then it was over.

She opened her eyes to see clear sky above her, stars twinkling all around, and a bright, glowing half moon. She looked down against her better judgment to find that she couldn't see the city below them anymore, the bright lights being completely swallowed up by the thick, gray cloud they'd just flown through.

She looked up at Jon's face, seeing a hopeful smile stretched across it.

"I come up here, above the clouds from time to time." He said, his voice having a bit of an edge to it, as if he was scared of her freaking out yet again. "It's- it's nice to just sometimes escape from the sights and sounds of the city, with the clouds covering everything down there. To get some quiet, and just watch the stars, when everything becomes... too much."

He smiled expectantly at her, tilting his eyes upward to encourage her to look up as well.

She did.

She had never seen the Gotham night sky looking like this before. Even during these rare days where the weather had taken a departure from the usual raining, one had to be very lucky to see past the smoke of the various factories like Ace Chemicals, pumping out the toxic-looking gas, obscuring nearly everything. If one were to see stars on Gotham nights, they would almost always be pale, blurry and disappointing.

But seeing them from this height was something else entirely. It was like a swirling sea of a million different lights, each one an unique size and brightness, sparkling directly at her. They were spread throughout the sky, which also looked way more different from up here, not as all-consuming black, but more of a beautiful, dark blue. She'd never really been able to appreciate how the night sky looked before now, in part because of the before mentioned pollution problems of Gotham, and also because of the fact that she usually went to bed too early for there to be anything visible. She was quickly becoming completely entranced by the lightshow she was seeing, almost starting to wonder if this was the thing she'd been missing all this time, if this was what it took to get her to value life again.

And then she had to go and ruin it by doing what she always did, and overthink everything.

How high up were they right now, exactly? Breathing in, she could tell that the air had definitely gotten thinner. How much further upward could they get until there wouldn't be any air left _to_ breathe, leaving her to die just the same way as before, this time without the pain of a rope digging into her neck? How much further before gravity ceased pulling them downwards?

It wasn't the beauty of the stars that was pulling her attention to the space above them now, and she was feeling anything but calm at the sight.

Sayori started feeling dizzy once again, seeing the sheer vastness of Space, unable to even wrap her mind around just how _big_ it was, with potentially no limits to the emptiness she knew surrounded their planet. She imagined a horrifying vision of what would happen if gravity suddenly reversed for her one day, and she would start falling upwards, directly into the nothingness of the sky, screaming all the way as she reached the sweet spot where she would start floating softly, getting farther and farther away from Earth until eventually the entire planet wouldn't even be visible any longer.

This nightmarish prospect was actually filling her up with even more dread than she'd felt at imagining herself falling down and hitting the pavement of the city, because at least in that scenario, there had been a tangible end in sight, whereas here she'd just be floating until reaching the end of the universe, which for all intents and purposes could might as well be called for all of eternity. Not that it would matter of course, since she'd be long dead by then, strangulated by the lack of oxygen, and her corpse would be entirely unaware of the endless journey it had been doomed to travel.

Or hadn't she heard something about how if exposed to the... vacuum, was it? ...of Space, you would implode, or explode, whichever, almost immediately? Would she not even be recognizable as she floated there, but instead just be a collection of various mutilated organs and frozen blood? She wasn't sure about it, another case of her stupidity from not paying enough attention in class, no doubt.

It didn't even matter that they had determined beyond a shadow of a doubt with all the alien invasions there had been, friendly or otherwise, that there was indeed _plenty_ of life in Space, what mattered was that her body would never be found by anyone that knew her, and no one would ever know what had happened to her.

_As if anyone would find out if you died on Earth. You think people would have even noticed if Jon hadn't found you when he had and cut you down?_

Sayori closed her eyes, trying to clear away what the Voice was proposing to her. She shouldn't be listening to it, it wasn't accurate at all. The Voice was lying like it always did, willing to say anything it could to upset her. She _had_ friends, people _did_ care about her, and they _would_ find out if anything happened to h-

 _They pretend to care, but you know everyone hates you. Monika, Natsuki, Yuri, Damian, even Jon. They don't actually like you, they just barely tolerate your presence._ _You can bet that if not for Jon, your body would have been left hanging there for weeks, even months, before anyone found out. Hell, you would have probably decomposed so badly that your rotting, bug-eaten neck would have slid right through the noose and your corpse would be left lying there on the floor, decapitated, only to be discovered when the smell would be unbearable even for people outside your house._

She started shivering. She should really have learned by now not to challenge the Voice's statements, since it was more than willing to whip up those sorts of disgusting descriptions for her mind to draw haunting mental images for.

"Sayori!" The sound of Jon's shocked voice made her open her eyes again, and look up at his concerned face. It took a lot of effort to keep her eyes focused on his, instead of the endless barrage of lights above. As much as Space terrified her, it was like watching a horror movie, hard to look away from.

"I'm so, so sorry." Jon said, his voice sounding panicked. "I forgot how cold it is up there for people without powers. You're shaking like a leaf!"

Oh right. She hadn't been able to stop shivering since she'd started thinking about her violent demise among the stars, the horror helped along in no small way by the Voice. And now that he mentioned it, she supposed it was a bit chilly up there, wearing only this casual white shirt and red shorts she'd changed into to add at least some level of comfort to her suicide attempt. She hadn't wanted to die wearing the school uniform.

"I'll get us down again at once." Jon said, and Sayori felt another surge of self-hatred for ruining the moment he'd wanted to share with her. It didn't matter at all what anyone tried to do for her, did it? She would always find a way to destroy it for herself and everyone around her.

"I should have realized, God, I'm such an idiot. I'm so sorry" Jon said, as he began descending down towards the Raincloud again. Why was he apologizing? It was her fault, not his. Everything that had gone wrong today had one hundred percent been on her.

"Y-you're n-not a-an i-idiot." She tried speaking, finding it to be very difficult as her teeth started chattering, which probably wasn't helping her case very much. "I-I'm t-the o-one who s-should be s-s-sorry."

Jon didn't answer, as they kept getting lower. Sayori closed her eyes and mashed her head up against the boy's chest again, shivering even more as they went through the cloud and she felt the clammy moist water particles all over her body again.

She took a shuddering breath through her nose, and caught the scent of Natsuki's cupcakes on him.

She started hearing the faint noises of honking cars and idle city sounds again, and looked up to see Gotham City beneath them again. She turned her head to see Jon's face, no smile visible any longer.

"I-I'm s-sorry." She repeated. It really wasn't enough for her to just be an useless sad sap herself, was it? She had to go and spread her misery around herself, infecting her own friends, the very people trying to help her.

He looked at her with a strained expression.

"Please, stop apologizing." He said, a pained undertone in his voice. "You haven't done anything wrong."

She was about to say sorry for saying sorry, but thankfully stopped herself before she could embarrass herself further, and instead turned her head to look on ahead, not at anything in particular, as she thought about how bad she had screwed up today.

"Um." Jon started, trying and failing to keep his voice as enthusiastic as before. "So, I'm thinking we find someplace warm to heat you up again, and then from there we can go anywhere you'd like. I don't think they're showing the movie anymore, but you just name any place at all, no matter where, and I can fly us there lickety-split."

Sayori closed her eyes, fighting back more tears. He really still thought he could save this situation, didn't he?

"D-do you have any place in mind?" He kept going, trying to encourage her to answer. "Maybe someplace fun, like... the Zoo? It's closed now, so there won't be any people apart from us two, if I fly us in there."

Sayori thought about watching the poor animals, locked in small cages, for humans to walk around and look at their imprisonment. She frowned, having never really thought of the Zoo that way before, but now that she did, she didn't think she could enjoy going there anymore.

"Oh, or how about the Amusement Park?" Jon suggested, still with that forced enthusiasm in his voice as he struggled to suggest something she might enjoy.

She thought about that as well. She couldn't afford going to one of those, and there was no way she was gonna let Jon spend his money on her. Besides, with all the awful news that seemed to pop up bi-monthly of the targeted attacks from The Joker, she was pretty sure that theme parks and circuses had been permanently ruined for her. And the last time she'd been at one, all those years ago, things hadn't exactly gone well.

"W-we could go over to M-Metropolis as well, where I live!" Jon said, and she thought she could hear his voice starting to break. Because of her? Definitely because of her. "It- it won't take long, I fly from there every day. You can meet my mom. Oh, and if I change into my Superboy costume, we could go to Bibbo's Diner! The owner is a big fan of Superman, and he always gives me what I want for free when I visit! What do you say? Wanna get a steaming mug of hot cocoa, free of charge?"

Sayori considered his suggestion. First thing's first, she was certain meeting any relative of his would be a complete disaster, at best. She could imagine her introduction to his mom all too vividly: 'Hi Mrs. Superman, I'm supposed to be Jon's friend from school, but instead of going to the movies with him, I decided to hang myself when he came over because I felt too sad, forcing him to save me. Then, I basically told him that he shouldn't have done that, and that I'd rather die than be with him. Also, he trusted me with your husband's secret, so that's another thing you have to worry about in what I assume is already a pretty stressful life.'

Yeah, no way was that gonna go well. And as for the Diner...

People _would_ say that what they offered was free, but there was always something in their faces, like an unspoken understanding that now that they'd granted you this kindness, a certain expectancy arose that you would have to do something equally nice for them, an expectation she couldn't possibly meet. There was also the thing where Jon definitely deserved the free cocoa, with all the things Superman and him had done for the city, not to mention the world, but _she_ most certainly hadn't done anything to earn it. The owner would likely look down at her, scoffing at the insignificant girl leeching off of Jon's fame to take advantage of his generosity. And then of course she knew she couldn't drink something like cocoa in good conscience, knowing the kinds of unhealthy junkfood she constantly put into her body.

Sayori knew what she had to do now. What needed to be done. Even if it would break Jon's heart almost as much as it would break hers.

"Can we go home?" She asked quietly, closing her eyes, too scared to see his reaction at her dismissing all his proposals, as the Voice started sarcastically celebrating her in her head, congratulating her for finally breaking her own record of the new most hurtful thing she'd said to another being.

"W-what?" She could actually hear the surprise, disbelief and heartbreak in Jon's voice.

She had to keep going, keep pushing. She had to end this charade. She knew she was being worse than the scum of the earth, but this had to be done.

"I wanna go home." She said, a bit more insistantly, to show him she meant it. "You said you'd take me anywhere. Take me home, please."

Sayori felt like she was kicking a puppy. She could feel the wind having stopped whipping against her body, and knew Jon had stopped moving, probably frozen in shock at her request. That was okay. She didn't say anything to rush him, he was fully justified in needing a few seconds to take in just how selfish the girl he was carrying really was.

"Okay." He finally said, his voice as dull and crestfallen as one could expect. "If that's what you really want."

"It is." She said, and her voice broke as she burst into tears anew. "Th-thank you. For everything."

She cried throughout all of the flight back, which wasn't ideal. She'd hoped that in making this decision, she could have at least kept a level head, to show Jon that this really was for the best, but as she kept thinking about how disappointed he had to be in her, how much pain she was causing him, and all the other things she'd done to him today, the hope of a dignified return to her place was quickly dashed, just like every other hope of hers had been.

She was thankful that Jon didn't try to comfort her or say anything to her at all on the way back. Maybe he had finally realized how useless it was to even try, and once he'd deposited her back into her room, he'd just leave her to her own devices again, and never return.

That was what she wanted to happen, but of course she knew better than to hope for anything to go her way.

She kept her teary eyes staring straight ahead, not wanting to look at Jon even once, and see his expression. Better to imagine him bearing an admittedly uncharacteristic enraged snarl on his otherwise kind face at having his time wasted like this, than looking to see him hiding it from her, perhaps even making her think that he still wasn't angry at her. She was done deluding herself.

At last, she started recognizing her house off in the distance, and as they approached, noticed the front door as well as the windows to her room were both wide open.

"Oh crap!" Jon exclaimed in alarm. "I totally forgot to close the door and windows after us!"

"It's okay." Sayori said calmly, meaning it. This truly didn't matter to her at all.

"Gah, this is Gotham! People could have just waltzed in and taken anything! How could I have forgotten!?" Jon kept yelling at himself. "I'll use my X-Ray Vision and Superhearing to scan the place. If there's been any burglars, they're gonna regret it."

"Jon, it's okay." Sayori repeated. She was starting to feel uncomfortable with how outraged he was at himself on her behalf, when she really didn't care if a thousand robbers had held a party in her house and stolen everything, nailed down or otherwise. At least the place would have brought some joy to _someone._ "I don't have anything worth stealing."

"Okay. No one's in there." He said, not giving any sign that he had heard her. She didn't blame him, it was probably really annoying for someone to be around her for so long, and if she was him, she'd definitely want to ignore herself as well.

He glided them softly through the open window, landing on the floor noiselessly, softer than a feather. She slid out of his arms, and made contact with the floor of her room, her knees feeling a bit wobbly after having been carried for so long. She looked up, seeing the room was exactly how they'd left it- the rope tied to the leg of her bed and slung over her hanger still swinging faintly in the breeze from her windows.

She looked down, seeing the remains of the noose lying on the floor, pulled apart by what she now knew had to be Jon's superstrength, and the end of it blackened, as if someone had used fire to sever it from the rest of the rope. His laser eyes?

"Crap." Jon said again, and she turned her head to see him having noticed as well, seeing the evidence of her suicide attempt, eyes wide in alarm.

"Uh, why don't you sit down?" Jon said, forcing a smile on his face. "I'll uh, clean up a bit in the meantime."

She obeyed, shuffling over to her bed, and settled herself into it. No reason to argue. Let him do another selfless act for her that she didn't deserve, and maybe he'd leave quicker.

She'd barely made contact with the mattress before she felt a strong burst of wind again, and she looked up to see that the ropes, both the one hanging and the one on the floor, had vanished without a trace of them ever being there. She heard a slamming sound from the floor below, and guessed he had just shut her front door again

Another wind burst, and she briefly caught a glimpse of a vaguely Jon-shaped blur in her room, and next thing she knew her windows were closed, and she felt a wet sensation on her hand.

She looked down to see Jon on his knees by the side of the bed, wrapping what appeared to be a soaked towel around her hand, rubbing at it with a firm, but gentle touch, a determined look on his face.

She let him, wondering idly why exactly he was doing this, but found out quickly when he removed the towel so she could see that her one hand was now completely clean, while her other was still stained in red.

Jon moved to her other side, and began repeating the process with her other hand.

It seemed like he was trying to remove any evidence of her trying to kill herself. Did he think that in doing that, they could pretend it hadn't happened?

 _An admirable effort._ The Voice sneered. _How do you think he's gonna handle your neck?_

She raised her newly cleaned hand to carefully touch her throat, feeling the sore area where the rope had dug in. That would probably leave a mark for a few weeks, at the very least. She raised her fingers and flinched when she felt the stinging pain of the scratches she'd made with her nails, trying in vain to claw off the rope.

It hadn't been because she had suddenly seen the value in her joyless life that she'd attempted to get the noose off. Truth was, she was just a wimp in addition to being a coward, and her body had acted on its own, fighting desperately in self-preservation against the pain.

Not that she could blame it. The pain had been really, really bad. Before this, she'd read how a large percentage of people who killed themselves used the hanging method, so it had seemed like the obvious choice, but she now wondered if the percentage would be that high if the people knew of the excruciating pain it involved. Well, it was more than likely that she'd done it wrong, screwed it up like she did most things. Or maybe she was just a weakling.

It was no doubt what she'd deserved, trying to do something like that in the first place, and if it had worked she was sure it would have been worth it, but now that she'd done it once, there was no way she was going to do that again. Not the "not killing herself" part, she still felt like she was probably going to do that once Jon left, but she'd definitely try to find a better method. The flying tonight had given her a few ideas, for one thing. She wondered if her house was tall enough for her to die immediately upon impact if she jumped off the roof, because if not, she would be left with possibly even more pain, lying in her garden with her bones broken, unable to move, and, worst of all, possibly surviving as her screams would alert the neighbors and she'd be driven to a hospital where they would waste their resources on someone like her.

She'd have to deliberately try to land head first, just to be sure. Being found with her head caved in, possibly even smashed to bloody bits wasn't as "appealing" to think about as hanging by a rope had seemed, but in truth, it didn't really matter, did it? She'd be dead either way.

She wished she owned a gun. Pointing a metal device at her head and pulling the trigger seemed like something even she wouldn't be able to mess up.

Jon had finished cleaning her hands long ago, and was now moving all around her room at superspeed, looking like what you would see when watching a cleaning timelapse online, hours and hours of tedious work being condensed into five minutes of satisfying, sped up efficiency. It seemed as if he wasn't content to just clean up the evidence of her suicide, as wherever the unclear blur of him went, the mess and dust littering the area like day-old used dinner plates or crumbled up candy wrappers simply vanished, replaced by spotless cleanliness, looking so clean it might as well have been polished.

She wouldn't put it past Jon to put in that amount of effort into cleaning her house, actually. It seemed to be right up his alley of all the amazing things he'd done for her today, and it wasn't like she could get a clear look at him, moving around at the speed he did. It was entirely possible that he was carrying all the supplies she never used herself in her cleaning cabinet.

 _Looks like you're gonna have to off yourself outside, now._ The Voice sounded sadistically amused. _Would be rude to stain the clean floor with your insides now that he's going through the trouble of actually making the place presentable._

Sayori thought she could guess why he was being so helpful, aside from him just being amazing, of course. He knew she wanted to be alone. He knew what she was going to do once she was left alone. And he didn't want her to get the chance to do it, thus busying himself with all he could to make sure he was with her for as long as possible, stalling for time.

Using his Superspeed to clean up was a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it made it so cleaning would only take a fraction of the time it otherwise would, putting some serious dents in his plans to stall, but on the other, it made it so she couldn't really get the chance to object to it. He could start a million different projects in the time it took her to blink, and then he could justify himself by saying that "well, I already started doing that, so might as well finish it, right?"

All this was okay with her. There were a finite amount of things he could do in this house, and nothing would take him more than 3 minutes at most, going at that speed. He would run out soon enough, and then she could finally make him leave and do what she needed to do, what she _had_ to do.

She could wait on killing herself a bit longer.

She felt like she was the bad guy in a movie, actively plotting schemes against the hero, Jon. Doing this would be like mercilessly stabbing him in the back after all the good he'd tried to do for her, and she was certain if he by some miracle wasn't hating her already, he would afterwards, no doubt about it.

But she was done feeling sorry for herself, done thinking about how her actions affected the people around her. She was done with life. This was something she just needed to do, ending her suffering and moving on to whatever came next. Which would probably be Hell. But at least she wouldn't continue hurting everyone down there.

Should she write a note, explaining all of this? No, better not. She wasn't a good writer, not like the other guys in the Literature Club, and the last thing she wanted to do was inconvieniencing the ones finding her even further by making them read through her poorly constructed ramblings. And besides, it wasn't like it was gonna make anyone sympathize with her. 'Hi, my name was Sayori, I was a privileged teenage girl with all I could possibly want in life, but I felt sad so I killed myself.' She cringed at the thought.

Her room looked almost unrecognizably clean, and Jon had at last stopped moving around as a blur. He smiled at her, not a single bead of sweat visible on him.

"Whev, that was fun. What do you think, pretty cool, huh?" He said.

It _was_ cool, she had to admit. Would have been cooler if he had done it to someone better, though.

"You didn't have to do that." She said, in a low voice.

"It was no trouble, really." He said. "My mom always tells me that a clean room does wonders for your mood, and I'm starting to believe that it's not just to pester me when she commands me to clean my room. Although she should really try to follow her own advice. I've seen her office at work, andin comparison it made my bedroom look like Damian's house, which for the record has a Butler!"

He gave a chuckle, before settling himself down on the bed next to her.

"So, what do you want to do now? We could watch another movie, or play a game if you have any. Whatever you want, I'm down for it."

He still wanted to hang out with her, acting like this was a sleepover? No way she could let this happen, absolutely not. She had to make him leave, now.

"Jon..." She started, looking at the darkness outside. "It's late, and it's a school-day tomorrow. Thank you for all you've done today, but I think it's time for you to leave."

"Sayori..." He said gently, his smile not dropping from his face. As if he was talking to a five year old. "You don't have to go to school tomorrow."

"Why not?" She asked, turning her head to look directly at him. "Because I'm a coward who tried to kill myself? Is that all it takes to get a day off?"

She wondered if she did have a superpower after all. Having the ability to take away the happiness of the people around her would explain her almost uncanny ability to consistently do so.

Jon looked as if she had just punched him in the face, his smile immediately vanishing and eyes widening in shock at her words.

_Remember back when you thought about how bad you were in comparison to the supervillains Jon fights? I think we can now safely conclude that you're not as bad. No, you're MUCH worse._

Jon opened his mouth to respond, but closed it again, possibly upon realizing that he didn't know what to say. She'd actually managed to say something so awful that he'd been left lost for words.

"I'm sorry." She said robotically, turning her head to stare blankly at the white wall by the other end of the room. "I don't know why I'm like this. What's wrong with me. But I do know it isn't something that can be fixed. I have five amazing friends, one of which is a superhero, and I still can't feel happiness. Something's got to be broken beyond repair inside me to make me feel that way."

"You don't know that." Jon said, desperation creeping into his voice again. "Sometimes we feel odd ways about things, and we can't help it. It's weird, but that's just how it is sometimes. And you can't say that it can't be fixed, if you haven't tried."

"I can only feel negative emotions, Jon." She said. "No matter what I think of, be it cute bunnies, delicious food, sleep or my friends, my thoughts always manage to paint them in a bad light. That's not 'weird,' or 'odd.' I don't even know what is, but I'm sure I don't want to live if nothing makes me happy."

"Nothing?" Jon asked softly, and she looked at him again. "You didn't feel anything about that flight we just took?"

She could tell by the disbelieving tone in his voice that flying was one of the things that made him the happiest, and couldn't get how anyone could think otherwise. Well, she was here to disappoint.

She shook her head. "I probably would have once, even been overjoyed. But not anymore."

"I see." He swallowed, looking anxious. "What about... what about me?"

She sighed, looking into his blue eyes. She didn't want to have to say this, hated herself for even thinking it. But maybe telling him would finally make him understand just how damaged she was.

"You're... you're making it worse." She said, keeping her eyes steady on him in an effort to make him understand. Shock once again appeared across his face.

"W-what?" He asked in a small voice.

It wasn't courage Sayori gathered when she took her next breath. There was nothing brave about it, it was merely her being resigned to further dig her own grave, and to just get everything out and over with.

"You're making me feel guilty, and stressed." She said. "Revealing your true identity to me, taking me on that flight, putting on expectations for me to magically become happy again, pressuring me. You're amazing, and you'll try everything you can to make me feel better, refusing to accept I'm a lost cause. You could spend your time much better on helping people more deserving than me, who'll actually be capable of feeling gratitude for it. You'll say you don't mind, maybe even convince yourself that I'm not a nuisance in your life. But it will change. I've been down this path before, and it always goes the same way when I tell people about this. You'll eventually get annoyed at how often I'll talk about how sad and miserable I am, grow resentful of me when nothing you do to help is gonna work. I'll be this depressive burden you'll have to carry for the rest of your life, and you're gonna hate me more and more, until finally you'll start wishing that you'd just let me die in that rope when you had the chance."

She breathed in heavily, coughing a few times when the air got caught in her sore throat.

She looked up again to gauge Jon's reaction to her speech, seeing nothing short of sheer and pure horror on his face.

"You're wrong." He said, his voice low, and close to a whisper. "I would never, ever think that about you."

"You say that now." She responded calmly. "But think about how you'll feel after the first six months. The first year. The next decade. You'll grow up to be as amazing as your dad, and I'll still remain the same needy, pathetic, depressed Sayori that I am now, weighing you down because you'll feel like you have to be there for me."

There was silence for a few seconds where they both just looked into each other's blue eyes. For once, Sayori wasn't crying, and neither was Jon. Maybe a sign of him finally understanding?

"Sayori." Jon said, his voice deep, and serious. "You need to see a therapist."

Oh. So he still didn't understand.

"Can't afford that." She said, dismissing him. "And it won't work."

Did he honestly think she hadn't considered going to a therapist before, during all her years of being the way she was? Even if she had the money for it, she just didn't see how sitting and opening up about how bad everything was to a total stranger was going to help in the slightest. For example, she'd done just that right now to Jon, a person she trusted completely, and it made her feel nothing but guilt. Therapy was not the solution, she knew that for certain.

"I'll pay." Jon said, in the same level voice. "And you have to try it before making up your mind about how effective it is."

_Yes, do it. Make him spend his money in addition to all the other things he's done for you._

"I can't take your money, Jon." Sayori said. "It'll just fuel my guilt even more, especially if I use it to waste the time of a therapist."

"You won't be wasting their time, it's literally their job."

"It's their job to cure their patients, and I can't be cured."

Jon sighed in exasperation. Probably the first real sign of him getting fed up with her worldview. It was happening sooner than she'd expected- a sign of him not being as patient as she'd thought, or her being more toxic than she'd been to her friends before?

"Okay." He said. "There's this Doctor I know, Leslie Thompkins, who's a friend of Damian's family, and by extension, mine. She's very kind and understanding, and if my mom were to give her a phone call, I'm positive she'd give you sessions free of charge, and-"

"I said it won't fucking work!" Sayori yelled, closing her eyes and plunging her fist down in the mattress of her bed like a child having a temper tantrum, her raised voice tearing at her throat, causing her to double over and begin coughing wildly again.

For the first time tonight, anger at someone else besides herself rose up in Sayori. Why couldn't he understand? Why didn't he get that everything she'd ever tried to do to fix this depression had failed? Why couldn't he just let her go?

_Try yelling at him some more. That'll show him!_

She was still coughing, her head bent down to face the floor, hoarse barking noises tearing at the insides of her throat as they left her mouth. She felt a comforting hand clap her gently on her back. The coughing mercifully stopped momentarily, and she was finally able to look up at that kind, boyish face again. Immediately, she regretted swearing at him.

"I'm s-sorry." She rasped.

"It's fine. Don't worry about it." He replied, and the voice could yell all it wanted about how much of a liar he was, but she could tell by the sincerity sketched in his face that he was telling the truth.

"I can't do it, Jon." She continued, forcing her voice calm. "I can't go to this therapist, or doctor, or whatever. I can't in good conscience go do sessions I know won't work. Even if you say she'll do it for free, I'll still be wasting her time."

"You can." Jon said simply.

"I'm telling you, it won't work."

"And _I'm_ telling _you,_ give it a shot. You might find yourself surprised." Jon gave a sly smile at the immature way he was one-upping her arguments. It frustrated Sayori, to the point where she sighed in exasperation.

"Look." Jon said, in a more serious tone. "You seem to have this odd idea in your head that you don't deserve help, that you need to earn every kind gesture coming your way for some reason."

Her eyes widened in surprise, and she looked up at him again. Did he understand after all?

"So, what I'm proposing is, if you won't go to Leslie for your own sake, then do it for mine." Jon's smile widened. "As... as a repayment for the flight."

Sayori seemed to freeze on the spot upon hearing his words. She tried opening her mouth, but didn't know what to say. Not even the Voice could seem to find anything to say about this situation.

While the flying hadn't been enjoyable for her, it had been _big._ Superman's son, revealing his identity and doing something for her that most people would kill to be able to try. And now, she owed him. She stared in shock at that smiling face she hadn't known could be so deceptive, outsmarting her, _weaponizing_ her own guilt.

The son of Superman had manipulated her into helping herself!

"Jon..." She finally found her voice again, and spoke in quiet awe of how much of a mastermind he was. "...that's- that's really cruel!"

Jon chuckled, apologetically.

"I know." He said, and she saw a single solitary tear travel down his cheek. "And I am sorry for resorting to dirty tactics like that. But, to be fair, you kinda left me no choice. You were... you were going to take my best friend away from me. Isn't that cruel too?"

She couldn't hold her tears back anymore. She started crying again, and was swiftly pulled into a warm hug by that frustrating, infuriating and wonderful boy by her side. She still couldn't feel anything close to happiness, she still thought the therapy she now _had_ to go to wouldn't work, and would be a big waste of time, for everyone involved. She still thought the only true answer to her problems was suicide.

But she couldn't do that anymore, for now at least. Not while Jon was waving that favor card of his over her head that he seemed to know exactly how to use. She couldn't die while still needing to clear her debt. She was a disgusting, ugly, self-pitying wreck of a monster who made everyone around her feel worse with just her mere presence.

But she wasn't a cheater.

* * *

"Are you sure you don't want me to stay here for the night? It's no trouble, really, and I really don't like the idea of you being alone here again." Jon said, concern once again littering his voice.

"I'm fine, Jon." Sayori said, in a voice that apparently wasn't convincing at all if Jon's skeptical eyebrow raise was anything to go by. "Okay, I'm _not_ fine. At all. But I promise I won't try to do anything like... _that_ again _,_ while you're gone. Not while I owe you."

"You do know that the whole repayment thing wasn't serious, right?"

"Yeah." She said. She wasn't a _complete_ idiot, and knew that Jon didn't actually think she owed him anything for the trip, but now the notion had been planted in her head, and it wasn't going away. "But it's literally the only thing I have left now to keep me going, so might as well go with it, right?"

She attempted a nervous smile. It didn't work, but at least she tried. Progress!

Jon walked forward to embrace her in his strong arms again, and she put hers around his back, accepting the farewell hug.

"Don't go to school tomorrow." Jon whispered softly in her ear. "I'll get my mom to clear up everything with the principal, and make it so you can attend Leslie's Clinic as soon as possible. I'll text you all the info you need, okay?"

"Okay." Sayori whispered back. She felt bad about not going, now that she knew she was actually going to still be alive the next day. To take a leave of absence during the Festival... Monika would be stressed, not having the Vice President with her to help. But still, it was very likely that she would just be in the way, her mind being the way it was right now. It was probably for the best.

They broke the hug, and he turned to unclasp her windows. The dark Rainclouds had gotten closer, filling up the sky above, painting everything ominously pitch black. She shivered stealthily behind Jon's back at seeing them. Jon turned towards her.

"And please don't stay silent, okay? Anything you wanna text me, no matter what, no matter when, just do it."

"Right." She said. "Goodbye, Jon."

"Bye, Sayori." He said, as his feet left the floor, and started floating out of the open windows, drifting towards the open sky.

Sayori took a few steps forward to close the windows behind him.

"Don't lose hope!" Jon called after her, waving as she grabbed hold of the windows to pull them shut. "We'll get through this!"

She nodded softly, and at last managed to secure the hinges of her windows. She looked up to catch Jon zooming upwards at a great speed until he disappeared from view.

_Hard to lose something you never had._

She flinched, despite herself. The taunt, if you could even call it that, had been so predictable. Just something mindless for the Voice to say to let her know it was there, filling up the empty space Jon had left in his wake. Completely cliché, and yet it still affected her. Such a prime example of how mentally weak she was.

The Voice wasn't her own, and yet it was. It was in her head, and nobody else could hear it, meaning that it had to be hers, but she knew what her own mental dialogue sounded like: her own speaking voice. And this wasn't that.

It was currently a girl's voice, but it didn't have to be. It had changed quite a few times through the years, her earliest memory of it being the disappointed voice of her father, before it had evolved into her mother. And then, as she'd started forgetting what their voices even sounded like, it took on the role of various friends, teachers, ice cream men, even cartoon characters she'd seen on TV. Basically taking anyone she'd ever felt attachment to, and twisting them into someone with nothing but hatred for her, who needed her to know just how much they despised her.

Sayori wasn't completely sure who the Voice was acting as right now. She definitely recognized it, but couldn't quite put her finger on a face. It was harder than it would seem to identify voices when they were disembodied like this, with that faint echo whenever it spoke, and it wasn't like she could ask it.

She was sure the owner would eventually come to her, and was certain it would be a day of absolute delight to find out which one of her friends she could never hear the same way again without remembering the insults she had heard them say to her. With her luck, the voice would probably become Jon soon enough.

Her phone buzzing on her desk shook her out of her thoughts, and she went over to pick it up, seeing a notification letting her know she'd received a text. She opened up the app to see the previous three unanswered messages from Jon.

JON: morning! you excited for today? movie time!

JON: heya. you ok? i called out for you in the yard this morning but i don't think you heard me, haha

JON: btw are we still on for this evening? we can talk details up in the club later, just want to make sure it's still happening.

Sayori glanced past them to see the new message from him. It didn't contain any words, instead just being a bright yellow face smiling at her. A silent encouragement from Jon in the form of an emoji.

_Or a taunt. Like he's saying 'look, even this picture can show more emotion than you! How embarrasing!'_

Sayori furrowed her eyebrows, and sent back a thumps up emoji in response, before pressing the lock button on her phone.

"Get out of my head." She murmured softly, despite her better judgment. Immediately, the Voice started screaming at her, no coherant words to it, just a mindless, inhuman screech so loud it made her grasp her head in pain. She grit her teeth in strained effort as she bent over, barely even able to think straight as it kept up the loud noise.

At last, the screaming ebbed out, and with shaking limbs, Sayori went over to her bed and took a seat, breathing heavily. Still shaking, she slowly removed her hands from her head. Why had she talked back at the Voice? She knew this happened every time she acknowledged her delusions. Had she thought this would go any better?

 _Learn your place._ The Voice sneered. _You're nothing. You're less than dirt. Don't ever talk to me again._

It was right. She really should know better. Its insult this time had just been so inane, so devoid of logic that she had thought she could maybe finally come out on top. She should have realized that there was no winning against this thing.

Sayori had already brushed her teeth and changed into her night clothes by the time Jon had finished cleaning even more of her house (stalling further for time, perhaps in a faint hope that she'd allow him to stay the night) so there really wasn't much else for her to do than move under her duvet, and click the button on her nightlight next to the bed, plunging the room into darkness and go to sleep. She usually made some ramen instant noodles or something equally easy for dinner, but had found she didn't have any appetite whatsoever, so she'd skipped that part of her night routine. That stuff wasn't exactly healthy, anyway. Well, maybe it was healthier than not eating anything at all, but she decided not to dwell on that part. No reason to give the Voice more ammunition than it already had.

Sayori closed her eyes, reflecting on just how crazy the day today had been. So much had happened, it hardly even seemed real to her.

She thought about the day before, specifically to the last time she could remember being happy, back to when she'd asked out Jon. It seemed like such a long time ago. You never really thought much about something as simple as happiness when you had it, but it always made you painfully aware of its effects when it went away. Maybe if she had known just how fleeting it was, she would have treasured it more.

Should she have done more to keep it? When she'd pulled herself together at last to ask out Jon, something _had_ nagged at her in the back of her mind, a serious question for the boy that desperately wanted to emerge. She'd left it unsaid, having thought it would be too much, too fast, to ask such a thing after having just asked about the movie thing. She'd justified it by telling herself that if the following night would go especially well, and they had a good enough time, then maybe... just perhaps... she could ask him then.

Had she been wrong to wait? Could all of this have been avoided if she'd just laid it on him back then? If he'd rejected her, things would have been devastating for sure, but if by some miracle he'd accept her proposal, that might have been enough to cement her Joy permanently, as she couldn't think of anything that would have made her happier back then.

Were these just the risks you had to take in life? If she'd just been braver and jumped in with both legs to express her untold feelings for him, would she have been leaving the cinema right now, laughing her head off with Jon, their hands clutching the other's in a tight, affectionate grip?

Or would the depression wave have hit her even harder than it had, affecting her so much worse since she would have had way more to lose at that point? It was hard to tell.

 _Not like it matters anymore, anyway._ The Voice butted in to her train of thought. _Since if by some miracle he still doesn't outright hate you after today, there's no way he could ever love you after seeing what you're really like._

She sighed, and turned onto her side in the bed, trying unsuccesfully to think pleasant thoughts that would help her fall asleep...

A loud, deep crash that seemed to come from everywhere at once made her yelp involuntarily, and she bolted upright in alarm, looking all around the dark room in an effort to locate the source of the sound. A bright light lit up her room for a fraction of a second, followed shortly by a second sound of similar volume, that shook her to her very core.

Soon enough, a million small taps could be heard hammering against her window, as massive amounts of rain began descending from the sky.

A thunderstorm. It was just a thunderstorm.

That didn't make her feel any easier though. That meant the Rainclouds above were stronger than ever, both in the real world and in her mind. How fitting, that the streak of warm and dry summer weather Gotham had had lately would end today.

Another bright lightning strike made her flinch, and the following thunderous sound made her flinch even harder. She tried telling herself that it couldn't hurt her, that she would be safe as long as she stayed inside. It didn't matter. Loud noises were still loud noises, and they still scared her as much as any jumpscare in a scary movie did.

Another crash, and she reached for her phone on her desk, quickly unlocking it, desperate for anything at all to distract her from the chaos erupting from the skies. She needed someone to talk to, to reassure herself that she wasn't alone in the world during this.

She remembered Jon's words, his kind voice echoing like a breath of fresh air in her mind after having had to listen to the other, snarling Voice all day.

_"And please don't stay silent, okay? Anything you wanna text me, no matter what, no matter when, just do it."_

Another thunderclap nearly made her drop her phone, as she managed to open up the texting app, seeing the smiley he'd sent her just minutes before. She started frantically tapping letters, asking if he was still awake, if he could talk, if he could-

_You sure he even made it home yet? It's only been, what, seven minutes since he left?_

Sayori's fingers froze, and she widened her eyes in shock.

_Granted, he's fast, but this storm might have caught him off guard. Might have slowed him down. Probably wouldn't be the best time to distract him._

She slowly lowered her phone again. She could feel her heart begin to pound faster in her chest.

_Especially since it was YOU who basically kicked him out into this weather. Say, do you think he's got enough of that Superman toughness to withstand getting struck by lightning? Because if not, you might have inadverdently caused the death of Earth's greatest hero's son._

Tears began streaming down Sayori's face yet again. She turned off her phone, plunging the room into complete darkness yet again. She was sure that Jon could handle himself, but the Voice was right that he didn't need the distraction while flying. She would just have to get through this night by herself.

She laid down in her bed again, trying to force herself to be calm when another strike caused her whole body to tense up. Had her nerves gone even more fragile from everything that happened today? It seemed unbelievable that she couldn't even handle a little thunder without panicking.

Another strike.

This clearly wasn't working. She needed something to help her get through this night, if she wanted any hope of getting some sleep. She racked her brain, trying to remember what she'd done in the past when she'd had trouble sleeping.

Then suddenly, it came to her. She'd been a very young girl, probably no more than eight, and it had been her first night going to sleep after her parents had been killed in that car crash on the way home from the Amusement Park. She remembered feeling very scared and alone, lying in her bed in much the same way she did now, struggling to comprehend that her mom would never again kiss her forehead goodnight, and she'd never get another bedtime story read to her by her dad. Everything about her future had seemed so scary and uncertain back then.

That was when she'd taken Mr. Cow, the aptly named giant grand prize stuffed cow she'd managed to win at one of the booths at the Theme Park. She'd been so proud of herself for accomplishing such a major achievement, which had only been fueled by the high praises her parents had given her in what had turned out to be their last hours alive. The plushie had easily been as big as herself, the perfect size for her to throw her arms around, hugging it tightly in her bed, feeling its softness. It had acted as a comforting remnant of a super fun day out with her parents, untainted by the darkness that had seemed to take hold of all her other memories of them.

She still had Mr. Cow, it having stood loyally beside her bed for all these years until this afternoon, when she'd put it inside her cabinet, not wanting it to "see" her hang herself. It was silly, she knew, but sometimes she felt like its black glass eyes acted like a sort of portal for her mom and dad to look through, from wherever they might be, and seeing her give up on life like that would surely have made them so disappointed in her. She thought hugging it again after so long would go a great way in helping her get through this thunderstorm.

She reached behind her with a shaking hand fumbling to locate the light switch, trying to prepare for the lightning strike that could come at any moment. She just had to get to the cabinet, retrieve Mr. Cow, and get back to bed. Easy as-

_You need a plushie to fall asleep? What are you, four years old?_

Her hand froze. She slowly pulled it back again.

The loudest crash yet erupted from the sky, and she had to physically clasp her hand against her mouth to suppress a scream. Wet tears were streaming from her face, staining her pillow, which she tried to bend around her ears to maybe deafen the sounds some more.

The Mr. Cow idea didn't seem that good to her anymore. What was a stuffed animal supposed to do here? It wasn't like it could stop her from being less of a coward. She'd just have to grow up and deal with it like every other girl her age did. She'd have to get through this night alone.

_You're not alone. I'm still here with you. And I always will be._

Sayori closed her eyes, and let out a whimper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thanks to "Liroi Roque's" interesting comment on my previous chapter, I appreciate all feedback, and you have no idea how much it means to me that people are reading and enjoying this.  
> Another thanks goes to the returning "Kariminal" for once again gracing my comments section. Thanks! The editor proof-reading my stories (hi, mom!) doesn't know the first thing about either DC or DDLC, so accessibility is of big importance to me. Hope you enjoyed how I handled this Chapter. <3


	8. Interlude IV: Fatherly Advice

Clark was cold.

A common misconception amongst most people was that him and his kind weren't affected by such trivial things as the temperature when flying through space. Because surely, a being capable of traveling to and actually staying inside of the sun itself for an extended period of time should be capable of withstanding the coldness of space, right? Logically, Clark shouldn't even be able to feel a difference between being here and being on Earth.

Except that wasn't exactly how Kryptonians like himself worked. Yes, he could plunge his hands through molten metal without getting any burns at all, and he could stand shirtless all night in Antarctica without getting hypothermia, but it wasn't like he couldn't _feel_ warm and cold. A day out in Metropolis during the winter season would be enough to make him shiver, if he for some reason decided not to wear the season-appropriate clothes. His Kryptonian durability kept him from being physically hurt by such things, but it didn't stop him from feeling slight discomforts like this. Which he was fine with, honestly. After all, what good would these powers be if he'd have to get depowered by Kryptonite to feel anything that wasn't at the same power level as a building-destroying punch from Mongul?

So yes, soaring across this inky black void like this, careful not to exhale and let loose any of the air he was holding in his lungs as he approached the official Justice League spaceship, The Javelin, parked a few thousand miles away from any predicted meteor showers or asteroid fields, wasn't exactly like a trip to the Bahamas, as his Pa would say. Especially when he was this far away from the source of his powers, the radiation of Earth's yellow sun.

The effects of its absence could definitely be felt. Space Travel without a specially designed suit would never be a pleasant experience for him, but it was even more uncomfortable now that he hadn't been replenished in the power department for a few days. He thought he had enough stored up in his system to last him at least another week as long as he didn't overexert himself by doing stupid things like flying around a planet so fast that time reversed. Which he was pretty sure wasn't even possible anyway, despite what Barry Allen might tell him, but there really wasn't any good reason to test it out in any case. If worst came to worst, he had packed a few power cells with some miniature suns Ray Palmer had provided him with, which would give him a small boost if this mission went on for longer than expected. Even then, he understood that they were to be used during emergencies only, and not because his fingers were starting to feel a little numb from the cold out here.

But all this wasn't to say that he was complaining about having to be out here, doing this. Even discounting the fact that Bruce wouldn't ever let him hear the end of it if he caught wind of him, Superman, one of the most powerful beings on Earth being deterred by a little bit of chilly climate, this was a necessary job. If the lives of anyone depended on him, then of course he would be there with zero hesitation or reservations about the conditions, as long as people needed him to step up to the task at hand.

And boy, was he needed here.

It had all started a few weeks ago, when a wormhole had seemingly manifested itself randomly, connecting the two previously largely unknown planets F'ir'aaz'i and K'or'xha, making the previous galaxies worth of traveling distance between them take no more effort than walking a few steps through the unremovable gateways that had spawned on each planet's Citadel. And to make matters worse, just a few hours after the wormhole had appeared, explosives had went off on each planet, all targeting historical statues and memorials of great importance, which quickly caused the two forcibly neighboring planets to launch a full-scale war on eachother.

Word quickly spread throughout the universe, until eventually reaching the Justice League who all swiftly travelled there to lend their aid. After arriving and exerting a bit of their power to put the steadily growing war on hold, they'd quickly discovered a culprit behind the wormhole in Lobo, the ever-unpleasant Czarnian Space Hog-Riding bounty hunter who'd recently gotten a sophisticated wormhole generator as payment for a (sleazy, no doubt) job well done, and had used it on the two unsuspecting planets as his idea of an innocent prank. Then, when he'd gotten bored of what he saw as an insufficient amount of chaos as a result, he'd "upped the ante" by planting the explosives, stolen from each of the planets to frame the other, so he could sit back and munch snacks as he watched the war declarations unfold.

It hadn't taken long before they'd incapacitated the nuisance space biker. While Lobo was a formidable foe perfectly capable of holding his own against even Clark, a whole League of equally powerful heroes descending on him proved to be too much, even for the self-proclaimed Main Man. A quick conference between the two planets was held, and Lobo needed no further persuasion than a tight embrace from Diana's Lasso of Truth to confess his crimes (and spout off quite a few obscenities) to the Leaders of the planets, which by all means should have ended the conflict right then and there.

But of course it couldn't be that simple. These kinds of things never were.

The wormhole was still up and running, despite the best efforts of Bruce, Michael Holt and Victor Stone to take it down. After learning the device used to create it had been single-use only, Lobo had simply smashed it against his forehead, ruining any hope of reverse engineering. When interrogated about the creator's whereabouts, the last Czarnian had admitted that he didn't take kindly to "sleazeballs" like him thinking they could pay for his services with their Science Fair projects, no matter how fun they proved to be, and had, as he put it, "fragged that bastich" for ripping him off.

With all their options having been exhausted, the expert opinions of the smartest Men of the League had been for the populations of F'ir'aaz'i and K'or'xha to just try and live in peace with the portal connecting their worlds, while they kept researching for ways to solve the issue.

They... hadn't exactly taken kindly to that.

While definitely grateful to the League for averting a war that otherwise would have been very costly in both resources and lives, the F'ir'aaz'i citizens were a highly suspicious people whose mistrustful nature were rivaled only by that of the K'or'xha population. And although they both believed and accepted Lobo being the sole man responsible of this, it didn't exactly make them breathe easier knowing that the other planet could invade them at any time they wanted. The uncertainty, confusion and fear present amongst the two races in this unprecedented situation, doubled with the fact that neither had exactly made the best first impression to the other, was the spark for much conflict and trash talk, which would eventually, in all likelyhood, lead to another war started of their own free volition this time.

Still, it wasn't like they were stupid. Both planets were perfectly aware that they were pretty evenly matched, making it a complete coin toss of who would come out on top. And no matter which side would see victory, they all knew that it would only be achievable through years and years of intense misery and suffering, wich would have serious repercussions on their economy for centuries to come.

Nobody on either planet wanted a war, and yet tensions between them continued climbing steadily.

It was the K'or'xha Supreme Emperor, Xul'horac, who first reached out to the League, requesting their assistance towards negotiating a peace treaty with the F'ir'aaz'i. As well as being mistrustful and suspicious, both alien races were proud to a fault, and neither wanted to take the first step towards establishing a working relationship with whom they couldn't help but see as a sworn enemy. What they needed was someone from the League to stay behind, to help guide them into taking the right steps, to ensure things didn't get out of hand, and could ease any situation that might be caused by aggressive comments made without thinking, or other, equally foolish scenarios.

What they needed, was Superman.

While it was true that there were plenty of extraordinary people more than capable of handling this, like Hal, Diana and J'onn to name a few, Xul'horac and the F'ir'aaz'i Queen, Brogthyn, made it very clear that they wanted Clark over anyone else to oversee this.

It never ceased to astound Clark whenever he saw firsthand how much of an impact he'd had on the universe as a whole, just by doing a few good deeds. Even on these foreign planets, each one trillions of miles away from Earth, they'd heard tell of "the great feats" of "the Kryptonian Super Man," and even with them being as mistrustful of nearly everyone as they were, they all seemed to unanimously agree that if there was anyone they could trust with the delicate nature of this matter and act as a completely unbiased and fair mediator, it would be the one wearing the bright, hope-inspiring House of El crest.

He hadn't deemed it necessary to tell them about all of the... less than inspiring individuals flying around, wearing his S symbol like Hank Henshaw, Bizarro and The Eradicator. Heck, even Lex Luthor had worn it at one point.

He resisted the urge let out any of his air in a sigh, as he finally began to see the silver surface of the small version of The Javelin he'd borrowed as a base to be in whenever he wasn't lending his assistance to the planets. After all, they would never learn to co-exist on their own if he kept being there to watch over them.

They were making steady progress. Just today, they'd made it through a whole meeting without Xul'horac calling the F'ir'aaz'i "primitive and barbaric" even once, and Brogthyn had managed to refrain from making any derogatory gestures with her tentacles towards the K'or'xha chairmen. If they kept this up, Clark saw no reason why he couldn't return to his wife and son in Metropolis by the end of the week.

 _I miss them so much._ He thought. _What kind of husband am I, leaving my city, my friends, my FAMILY alone like this, completely unprotected? What if something happens to them while I'm up here, playing diplomat?_

He quickly snapped out of this line of self-pitying thinking as he reached The Javelin,placing the palm of his hand on the surface of the ship, causing green letters to manifest next to his hand.

_"Recognized: Superman. Welcome aboard."_

A circular crack appeared on the otherwise smooth, silver surface, revealing a hatch which Clark quickly entered to find himself in the airlock of the ship, where he pressed a few buttons to balance the oxygen level.

There was no reason for him to put blame on himself. This was a very important job, and because of the name recognition that naturally came from being him, he was the only one who could do it with this amount of success.

And besides, he reminded himself, it just wasn't factually correct that he'd left Metropolis unprotected. Before his departure, he'd made sure to inform the likes of Karen, Kara and John Henry Irons, who'd all assured him that they'd keep the city safe in his absence, and he had complete faith and trust in them to keep their word.

Furthermore, he knew perfectly well through the many years of knowing her that Lois Lane was an extremely capable woman, who was more than up to the task of keeping both her, and their son safe.

Even so, he had told Jon not to go off exercising his superheroics throughout this week, and as an extra measure asked Power Girl, Supergirl and Steel to just check in on them every once in a while. Stealthily, of course. Lois would surely have a go at him if she found out he'd assigned them with what she would call "Super-Babysitters."

He smirked at the thought, as the loud "ping!" sound from the ship informed him that air levels were normal again, and he could finally let out a sigh of exhaustion. With the medium amount of solar radiation he had left in his system, he'd found himself actually growing tired again for the first time in a long while, but he imagined that even fully juiced up he'd be weary from having to listen to the political speeches of Xul'horac and Brogthyn day in and day out, and make sure to intervene if they tried to include subtle insults to the other leader without them noticing.

The door to the larger room of The Javelin slid open, with heavy sarcasm quotes over "larger." It wasn't exactly a cruise ship, designed mostly for fast space travel, and... not much for anything else, really.

The room was an "all-in-one," counting as living room, bedroom, kitchen and cockpit all at the same time. It was all very efficient, really. The pilot seat was the only upholstered piece of furniture in the room, and could double as a bed by pressing a button to tilt the back of it into a horizontal position so one could lie down. Of course, you'd have to collapse the miniscule dinner table behind it into the floor, first.

Beyond that, there was a tiny refrigerator in the far corner of the room, packed with rations Clark still hadn't gathered the courage to try yet, hoping that the negotiations would be over well before he got hungry enough to need food. Next to it, at the end of the room was a decently sized flatscreen used for when the planet leaders needed to contact him via video conference. Currently, it showed a still image of himself in his dad's old farmer's clothes, standing next to their old barn at Hamilton County, posing for the camera with Lois by his left side, arm around his, as she smiled confidently, and Jon by his right side, making a silly face for the camera.

Clark smiled as he always did when he saw that picture. God, Jon had been so young back then. Where did the time go? He felt like it was just yesterday when they'd decided to move away from the place and into the apartment at Metropolis instead.

To the side of the screen was the only door in the ship aside from the one to the airlock, leading to the even smaller and more cramped bathroom, which Clark swiftly moved towards. He had to bend his head down a bit to not scrape against the low ceiling as he walked, but that was okay with him since he usually had to hunch at the Daily Planet. When your main means of concealing your secret identity from the rest of the world were a pair of thick glasses, you had to think a little creatively to utilize it as much as possible.

Entering the bathroom, he looked himself over in the mirror above the sink. He was by no means a vain man, but even he thought that you should try to look as presentable as you could when meeting up for congress. And after having spent two whole days on F'ir'aaz'i overseeing a very sensitive debate about the rules of their own religions, how the K'or'xha citizens would be expected to conform to them, and how there was no way F'ir'aaz'i would ever acknowledge the "backwater primitive culture" of K'or'xha's religions as being something even remotely respectable, Clark saw that a very visible amount of gray stubble had started littering the lower parts of his face, and his dark hair, although still maintaining his familiar trademark kiss-curl, was looking a lot messier than he'd like, with a vague shine to it due to the grease that had gathered over the cause of those two days.

He turned his gaze down to his bright blue uniform bearing the House of El crest on the chest, and a red cape visible from behind him. The uniform bore a few trails of green slime from where F'ir'aaz'i officials had touched him for picture-taking, their skin naturally secreting the stuff.

He didn't need to lift his arm to sniff under his armpit, his keen sense of smell already informing him of what he already knew: he really needed a shower. The conjoined planets needed Superman, not some hairy caveman reeking of body odour.

It was a good thing showering had been considered one of the bare essentials when Cyborg had designed this spaceship. It would be a tight fit regardless, with the showerhead only reaching up to his chin at the highest setting, and that was _with_ Clark hunching. To get underneath that, he would have to bend his knees so low, he would be close to sitting.

Maybe he _should_ have chosen one of the bigger Javelins, like Diana had told him before he departed from the Hall of Justice. But he hadn't been able to justify taking one of those for this simple mission, in case the rest of the League would need to have a large team-up that required interstellar travel. The chances of that were admittedly small, but hey, it was a possibility.

 _Lois would definitely tell me that I make things harder for myself if she was here._ He thought with a sigh, and began stripping out of his outfit.

After folding it up neatly, how Ma had taught him so many years ago, he put it into the decontamination bin by the side of the sink, where it would remain in the few minutes it would take for the lasers inside to systematically eliminate any trace of germs, bacteria and uncleanlines of any kind. Certainly quicker and more efficient than any washing machine he knew of, but also far less personal. Clark could live with this way for the moment, but he definitely knew how he preferred to have his clothes washed.

Turning on the water, and managing with some difficulty to position himself in a way that let the liquid cover his whole body, he looked up at the mirror again and decided to get two things done at once while he had to wait in this awkward crouching position anyway. He had never really been one to drag things out in the shower, even when he had the room to do it comfortably.

Feeling the familiar sensation of his eyes growing hot and seeing the bathroom turn bright red around him, he zoomed in on each one of the small hairs on his chin in the mirror, feeling the heat from his eyes being reflected from the glass surface onto his own face, burning away the stubble. Some people might say that bombarding his own face with incredibly concentrated amounts of heat was a very dangerous way to shave himself, but he would argue that if those people put dents in their razorblades simply by running them across their chins, they would probably look for more creative ways to trim themselves, too. Alternatively, he knew he could use his fingernails instead, but that just felt _wrong._

The mirror started fogging up, obscuring his vision as the water that fell in front of his face immediately evaporated into steam at the contact with his heat vision, and Clark decided to turn it off. Feeling the smoothness around his chin, he knew he had gotten enough anyway.

He had only just managed to wash the last of the shampoo out of his hair when he heard the blaring alarm from the main room of the ship.

Time slowed to a crawl around him. Water droplets around him seemed to freeze in midair as Clark activated his superspeed.

The Earth Communicator in the other room had been activated. His family needed him.

Cyborg had really outdone himself with this device. Clark had no idea how he had managed to make a a piece of tech such as this, with a signal receiver capable of transmitting both sound and video from Earth in real time, no matter how far away in the Universe you found yourself, but he was grateful for its creation regardless. Supposedly, you could even go to the far reaches of the Source Wall itself, and still have crystal clear signal. Well, maybe the video could lag a bit at times, and the audio quality had a fair bit of static, but that could easily be overlooked. Immediately upon its creation, Clark had given one to Lois, granting her the ability to contact him no matter where he was.

However, it wasn't like whatever energy source it used to make this possible was free, and calling him up when he was trillion of miles in deep space racked up a cost just _slightly_ more expensive than a phone call to Australia, so they'd agreed upon not using it for smalltalk on lonely nights (no matter how appealing that prospect seemed to him lately) and only activate it if she or Jon absolutely needed him.

Which they did now.

The device utilized some of the same technology as Jimmy Olsen's watch, giving it a signal that fell on deaf ears for most creatures, but a Kryptonian could clearly hear a whole planet away, ensuring that he would be able to hear it, even while being on the alien planets.

He used a fraction of a second to turn off the water, dry himself, and put on the now impeccably cleaned outfit from the bin. The first "zeee" tone of the Communicator was halfway through running out when he snatched it up from its place in the pilot seat, and hit the green respond button.

"Lois?" He asked, unable to keep the concern out of his voice as he waited with baited breath for the small blank black screen to begin transmitting video. Uncomfortable visions flashed in his head of all the reasons his family would have to call him. Darkseid invading Metropolis with his armies of Parademons. Amazo having stolen too many powers from the League to be stopped. The Multiverse collapsing.

But to his surprise, it wasn't the sight of his wife that met him when at last the video connected. It was a young, darkhaired boy, looking so much like Clark had when he'd been younger, blue eyes looking through the screen at his father, with no hint of the usual wide smile on his face.

 _"Hey dad."_ Came the scratchy voice through the speakers of the Communicator. The unmistakable voice of Clark's son, Jonathan Kent. _"It's... good to see you."_

Even with the somewhat lacklustre audio quality, Clark could hear that something was deeply wrong. Jon's voice sounded... off, and he thought his eyes looked a bit too puffy and red, as if he'd been crying. Clark hoped that was just the video resolution playing tricks on him, but braced himself regardless for hearing the worst as he spoke up.

"Jon? What's the matter? Why are you calling? Is your mother okay?"

 _"Nothing's wrong!"_ Jon's pixelated eyes widened in a slight panic at hearing the alarm in Clark's voice. _"We're totally safe, the world's not in peril, and mom is right here in the room with me, she's just on the phone right now."_

The framerate of the video lowered as it struggled to keep up with the sudden movement of Jon tilting the device to the side, until it cleared somewhat up again to show Lois, as breathtakingly beautiful as she'd been on the first day he'd seen her at the Daily Planet, sitting by the dinner table at their apartment, holding a phone to her ear. She looked up, waved a blurry hand upon seeing Clark, and lowered the phone, covering the mouthpiece with her hand.

 _"Hey, Smallville."_ She said, in an unmistakably tired voice, before raising the phone to her ear again.

She didn't look much happier than Jon did, but from what Clark could tell from this admittedly low quality, she was unscathed. He raised an eyebrow, wondering what the point of this call was if everything was seemingly fine, as Jon came back into frame again on the small screen.

 _"I'm really sorry for calling you."_ Jon said, in that same troubled voice. _"I know we aren't supposed to do that when you're so deep in space and busy with the fate of worlds unless there's a real emergency, but something happened today, and... and I..."_

Jon's voice broke just like Clark's heart did at seeing his son like this. It was clear that something had upset him deeply, as he closed his eyes, taking in shuddering breaths. The video quality wasn't good enough to show them, but Clark didn't need it to be able to tell that tears were streaming down his face. After a few seconds, he pulled himself together enough to speak in a small, whimpering voice.

_"...I just don't know what to do, dad, and I... I just really needed to talk to you."_

At hearing that, Clark wanted nothing more than to blow off this entire mission, leaving F'ir'aaz'i and K'or'xha to figure their politics out on their own, and fly as fast as he could down to Earth to comfort his son. Rationally, he knew that was a selfish betrayal of everything he stood for, and that even at his top speed which was quite a bit faster than the speed of light, the trip to earth would take him over a day, and that was when he had all of his powers fully charged.

But Jon needed him.

 _Sure wish I had Lobo's wormhole generator now._ He thought bitterly, cursing the Czarnian bounty hunter for this mess he'd caused.

"You have nothing to apologize for." He said, in the most comforting dad voice he could manage, hoping his tone would come across over the Communicator. He meant it. He didn't care about how expensive this call would be, Bruce could pick up the damn bill. "I'll always have time to talk to my family if they need me, no matter what I'm doing, don't you forget that. Now, what is it that's troubling you?"

Jon took another shuddering breath, fighting back sobs.

_"Dad, have you... have you ever encountered suicide victims before?"_

Clark frowned. He could already tell this would be a rough conversation.

"Yes. I have." He said.

It was a very uncomfortable subject for him. Too many times had he heard the terrible sounds, in his own city no less, of creaking ropes in living rooms, firearms pointed directly at heads going off, and the sickening impact of someone simply throwing themself off a building towards the street below.

They were sounds that terrified and haunted him even more than the screams of the Silver Banshee, because he knew the people in question were doing it of their own free volition, knowing their actions would result in tragic death, and still went on regardless.

And far too often was he too late to prevent them.

 _"Dad..."_ Jon said, his voice small, hardly even picked up by the microphone. _"How do you save someone who doesn't want to be saved?"_

At that, Jon broke down completely as he fully burst out crying, and Clark got another nearly uncontrollable impulse to abandon the planets worth of life nearby who all needed him, fly to the firepits of Apokolips and probably declare war on Earth in the process as he would take on each and every one of Darkseid's minions until one of them would give him a Mother Box he could use to make a Boom Tube directly to Earth, and hug his son.

Instead, he waited patiently for Jon to gain control of himself again, not rushing him even once. A few minutes went by before Jon quieted down a bit. He looked so vulnerable like this, and no matter how much the years had changed his appearance since they moved to Metropolis, Clark could clearly recognize his little boy in him.

"Take your time. Deep breaths."

Jon hesitated, then obeyed, and a few bursts of static could be heard from the speakers as he exhaled.

Clark smiled, hoping to reassure his son that everything would be all right.

"Feel better?"

_"A... a bit, yes. Thanks."_

"Good." Clark said, and tried to employ one of the techniques he'd learned as an investigative reporter to encourage the people he interviewed to open up more. "Now, how about you try and start from the beginning? I'd love to help in any way that I can, but I need to know the full context first. Okay?"

 _"Okay."_ Jon said, nodding to show he understood, determination showing up in his face, pushing past the sadness.

 _That's my son._ Clark thought proudly.

_"So... I started attending the school in Gotham like we arranged, remember?"_

"I do." Clark said.

He'd had some qualms about sending Jon to a city like Bruce's, but he couldn't deny that whatever else you could say about Gotham's flaws, like its pollution, seedy nightclubs, crime rate and amount of costumed lunatics, its education systems were top notch. And with Jon's own school having recently been unwillingly put out of commission, courtesy of one stray shrink ray from Brainiac, the idea of him going to Gotham seemed like a downright decent idea, especially when Bruce had told his son, Jon's best friend (for better or worse) Damian to go there as well.

 _"Okay, so at the school, I met this really nice g-girl, and we quickly became friends."_ Jon said, tripping a bit over his words.

Under normal circumstances, the news of Clark's son gaining a female friend would have been a cause for celebration in the Kent household, with Lois and Clark going full on "Mom and Dad" mode, clapping Jon on the shoulder and telling him "way to go!" to see just how much they were able to embarrass him. But Clark could tell that this wouldn't be an appropriate reaction this time, seeing Jon's expression.

 _"W-we got on r- really well, me and her, or so I th- thought, anyway."_ Jon said, his lips starting to quiver again. _"And we even agreed to han- meet together at her place today, but... but then when I got there..."_

Jon swallowed, before he went on explaining the rest.

Clark's heart sank as he heard the full extent of Jon's tale, and he now fully understood why Jon had felt the need to use the Communicator. Such an awful thing to have happen, for Jon and the girl both. His son might have grown older and more mature than he once had been, but he was still way too young to be forcibly exposed to something as serious as this happening to a person so close to him.

It did something to you. Even Clark, unfortunately being as "experienced" with these sorts of things as he was, thought he could feel himself physically age a few years each time he had to try and talk down someone on a ledge who'd lost all hope, or when he discovered too late the body of someone whose death had been caused purely by their own hands. He couldn't even imagine what Jon was going through now, getting a new friend he obviously cared for a lot, only to have her almost be taken away from him again like this.

Clark hadn't wanted Jon to learn about this dark aspect of humanity so soon, and _certainly_ not in this way, but now that it had happened like this, there was no going back. Jon would have to live with it, and Clark would have to do his best to guide him through it.

 _"I- I'm sorry, dad."_ Jon said, tears visible even through the video's resolution, dribbling down his face after he'd finished recounting how his evening had turned out at the girl's house.

Clark furrowed his eyebrows, confused.

"Sorry? Sorry for what, Jon?"

 _"R- revealing my i- identity"_ Jon sniffled. _"I know that w- wasn't my call to make, a- and that it brings our whole family in d- danger, but I just... She told me she w- was going to try to d-do it again, and I... I couldn't think of anything else to do!"_

"Shh, Jon." Clark said, in a soothing voice. "It's okay. I know you're a smart kid, and I trust your judgment completely. If you think this girl can be trusted with knowing who you are, then that's good enough for me."

Jon didn't reply, being too busy sobbing quietly. Clark pushed away his burning desire to go to Earth and comfort him, instead focusing on what he could do to help from here.

"How are you feeling, Jon?" He asked.

 _"Th- that doesn't m- matter."_ Jon blurted out between shuddering breaths. _"I- I wasn't the one who tried to h- hang myself. It's about h- her, not m- me, and-"_

"Jon." Clark interrupted, holding up his hand to quiet his son. "You've just been exposed to a traumatic experience. What that girl did was tragic and terrible, no one's denying that, and I am so proud of you for doing what you did. But I'm asking _you_ now. How do _you_ feel?"

There was a few seconds of silence as Jon considered Clark's words.

 _"Lousy."_ He spoke up at last.

"That's only natural." Clark said. "Try to look deep into yourself, and expand on your emotions some more."

_"I- I guess I feel... frustrated, over how little impact any of what I did seemed to have on her. And- and scared too, since I don't think I left her in a great headspace. I mean, better than what she was like before, but still, I have no way of knowing if she'll follow through with our agreement, or if she'll give up halfway through tonight."_

Clark could definitely relate to that. During the early days of life with Lois, post-identity reveal, he'd been worried non-stop about the ramifications of bringing her into this dangerous life of his. Of course, it wasn't like she was a stranger to the world of supervillains and natural disasters, being a reporter long before she even knew him as Clark Kent, but it had been as if the simple act of telling her the truth about who he was had brought her just a tad bit closer to danger. He'd been so ridden with anxiety, constantly thinking about how fragile she was compared to himself and the beings he fought, and had found himself wishing he could just lock her safely away in the Fortress of Solitude so she could never be hurt by the likes of creatures like Rogol Zaar and Kalibak.

Eventually though, he'd learned to be a bit more trusting in his wife's capabilities to handle herself, and treat her like an equal instead of a piece of rare china, something to be locked away in fear that she might break otherwise. He still worried his head off whenever he had to leave like he had now, but it was one of those things where he just had to accept that sometimes, things were just outside of his control, and that was okay. After all, a life where you controlled everything that happened at all times, eliminating all dangers, risks, surprises or any kind of unpredictability, was hardly a life worth living at all.

 _"...I feel ashamed."_ Jon said.

"Ashamed?" Clark asked in surprise. "Why is that?"

_"I'm Superboy. Son of Superman. I have all of these amazing powers, and I'm supposed to use them to save people, but I couldn't save her. I could only... delay it."_

Clark sighed.

"Son, if there's one thing I've learned since I started going out in costume, it's that no matter how hard you try, even with the amount of powers we've been gifted with, it's impossible to save everyone. It's... a rough thing to accept, but you shouldn't beat yourself up about not being able to do something nobody else is able to, and hold yourself up to such an unreachable standard."

 _"It's just not fair!"_ Jon exclaimed, looing up at Clark with eyes bloodshot from crying. _"Why is it that we can save all those complete strangers from earthquakes and alien invasions, but not the people who actually matter?!"_

"Everyone matters, Jon." Clark said, quietly.

 _"I know that, but-"_ Jon's voice cracked. _"Th- this girl just matters a lot to me, and- and she's telling me to just give up on her. That there's nothing I can do to help her."_

Jon took a deep breath, clearly in an effort to calm himself.

_"Was- was I wrong to take her on that flight? I couldn't think of what to do, but I always feel happy when flying so I just thought... maybe she would too?"_

"You did what you thought was best in a tense situation no one could have ever prepared you for. That's all that matters." Clark said. He thought that maybe Jon could have warned this girl of what he was going to do, since from what he had heard of Jon's retelling of the event, the girl's reaction had lined up pretty well with a classic fear of heights. But this really wasn't the time to give his son a critique of his actions. "I commend you for making her agree to try out therapy. That was a really good move."

 _"I just can't shake off this worry."_ Jon said, looking unsure. _"She seemed so convinced that it wouldn't work, so sure that nothing could make her life worth living again, that for a split second I- I found myself... agreeing with her. Dad, what if... what if this doesn't work, and as soon as this week is through she'll go right back to where she was before? Back to being completely devoid of hope, and try to do..._ that, _again? What do I do then?"_

Clark looked sadly at his son, and braced himself.

"You can't force her to be happy, Jon." He said, and saw the sheer shock on his son's face at hearing his words. "It's ultimately her own choice whether she wants to live or not, and if she decides she doesn't, no matter how awful it is, we have to respect her wishes."

 _"What?!"_ Jon yelled, outraged. _"You- you're saying there's nothing I can do? That I should just sit back, and LET her kill hers-"_

Jon was silenced once more as Clark lifted his hand again.

"No Jon, I'm not saying that, and you will never hear me say that. The best thing you can do right now for your friend, is to be there for her, at all times. Visit her while she's at Leslie's Clinic. Call, or text her over your phone. Do your best to let her know that you care about her, and that you don't think she's a bother. What you did today was a great first step, but there is still a long way to go, filled with hard work and dedication for you to truly help her get through this, and even then, you have to prepare yourself for the possibility that it won't be enough for her to want to keep on living."

There was a few moments of silence as Jon took in what Clark had said, until at last he rubbed some tears away from his eyes and spoke up.

_"That- that doesn't sound like very good advice."_

Clark smiled sadly.

"Unfortunately, there are no magical 'fix everything' buttons to these types of issues, Jon. Sometimes, things like this just happens, whether we like it or not, and there's nothing even a Superman can do about it. It's a... harsh truth, but that just makes it that much more important for us to find the hope."

 _"It's not fair."_ Jon said, scowling.

"I know it can seem that way." Clark said. "It doesn't seem fair either that Sue Dibny and Ted Kord are both dead while Maxwell Lord and Doctor Light are still alive. Or that Barbara Gordon is confined to a wheelchair with The Joker still at large, and actively planning to hurt more people. Or that Kal-L and Lois Lane from Earth 2 both met their end while Superboy Prime is still out there, somewhere, alive and well."

 _"I never liked that guy."_ Jon said, cringing at hearing of the man who shared his hero name.

"I don't think anyone does." Clark said, smirking despite himself. "It can seem like the whole universe is against us sometimes, with so many good people dying, heroes as well as normal people without powers, while the forces of evil just keeps on growing larger, with new villains popping up on what feels like every other day. But it's not. There are plenty of good things happening all the time, so often overshadowed by the bad stuff. The universe is neither with us, or against us. It just... is. And I'm so sorry, Jon. You should never have had to face this issue, especially not at your age. But you can't lose the hope that you'll both get through this. Because once you lose that, that's when the fight is truly lost."

Jon sighed.

 _"I won't."_ He said, giving a weak smile. _"Thanks for listening, dad. I have to go now, it's late."_

Clark smiled back.

"Do not hesitate to call me back again if you need me." He said. "I don't care how much using this device costs to use, you and Lois are the two most important people to me, and I will always have time for you."

 _"Don't worry, I will."_ Jon said. _"Bye dad. Please come home soon!"_

"Goodbye, son. I'll see what I can do." Clark said, and the Communicator's screen turned black as Jon disconnected.

Clark sighed, as he sat down in the pilot seat. If he'd been tired before, he was positively exhausted after having had to talk about such a heavy subject with his son. He hoped he hadn't come across as being overly negative to Jon with the things he'd said, and made him think there wasn't anything he could do to help this girl struggling with depression. He just... he had wanted to make it clear to Jon that this wasn't the sort of problem one could solve simply by punching some bad guy in the face, or telling him that "as long as he believed in himself, _anything's_ possible!" He hadn't wanted to sow false hope into Jon with something as serious as depression.

Now that he thought about it, Clark had actually been surprised by how well Jon had taken it. He'd accepted it far more quickly than he had expected, and he could feel a strong feeling of pride in his son amongst the general feelings of weariness and exhaustion throughout his body.

 _He's grown so mature. When did that even happen?_ He thought, proudly.

A beeping coming from the end of the ship's room shook him from his idle thoughts, and he looked up to see the alert for an incoming transmission on the screen, coming from K'or'xha.

Clark suppressed a sigh, and pushed away his feelings of fatigue before rising to his feet, clicking a button to accept the transmission. He momentarily pushed his worries about Jon and his troubles with the girl to the back of his mind, in order to give this impromptu meeting his fullest attention. He wasn't Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter and father anymore, he was Superman.

The picture of him and his family on the screen disappeared to reveal a rather large insectoid creature, pale blue in hue with bright yellow eyes, almost larger than the head they were positioned on top of, staring harshly at Superman as he clicked his mandibles, a clear sign of his anger.

"Emperor Xul'horac, you honor me with your presence." Superman said in a respectful voice, bowing slightly in acknowledgement, trusting the universal translator in the ship to make his words understandable to the alien. "To what do I owe this overwhelming pleasure?"

"Superman." Xul'horac clicked, impatience clear in his tone. "You must come to the conjoined conference hall at once to settle this latest dispute between me and the F'ir'aaz'i witch!"

"Emperor Xul'horac, remember what we've talked about with the namecalling." Superman said, frowning. This would be the third disagreement he'd had with Queen Brogthyn in as many hours. One would think that the great Emperor would run out of grievances eventually. "What is the nature of this dispute?"

"My Xilter has been stolen." The K'or'xha leader hissed, mandibles going haywire. From what Superman could remember from his brief history lesson of the planet, Xilter were a highly praised and worshipped species of giant larvae, comparable to the likes of cattle on Earth. "And I just know that treacherous wit- I mean, Queen Brogthyn had something to do with it!"

"Do you have any proof?" Superman asked, finding it highly unlikely that Brogthyn would risk all the progress towards peace they'd made the last couple of days, just to steal something that he knew for a fact the F'ir'aaz'i found competely worthless. "Any evidence at all to support your theory?"

"I don't need no evidence, this has her MO all over it!" Xul'horac said irritably. "If you're not to be found at the conjoined conference hall in one hour, overseeing this, I'm declaring war on those thieving cephalopods again!"

Accepting that this was a job for him, Superman bowed graciously to Xul'horac again.

"Always a pleasure to receive your beckoning, great Emperor."

Xul'horac released the best approximation of a snort he could manage with his mandibles, and disconnected from the call, causing the screen to revert to Clark and his family smiling up at him in front of the barnhouse.

Superman sighed, and began preparing the airlock in order to open the hatch out into the deep, cold space. It didn't seem like peace between the planets would be achieved today.

 _Be strong, Jon._ He thought, as the hatch opened, and he stretched out his hand, departing from The Javelin to fly off and save the day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys!
> 
> Just a short little filler chapter this time around, but one I hope you'll enjoy nonetheless, before we return to the plot again next chapter. And I can already tell you, it's gonna be a long one.
> 
> Everything about the warring alien races in this chapter was me going into my friends' group chat, telling them to give me a bunch of weird names, which I then wrote into this. So if they pranked me by giving me the names of already existing characters from some obscure franchise I'm unfamiliar with, they're the ones to blame!
> 
> As always, a big thanks to Kariminal for their wonderful comment on the previous chapter. Your continued support for my story means the world to me, and I hope I can continue to live up to it. You rock, seriously.


	9. Sins of the Father Pt A

A light rain dripped down from the dark gray clouds above, blocking the sun from view, breaking the unusually long period of hot summer weather in Gotham, and bringing it back to a more familiar status quo.

The raindrops landed all around the schoolyard of Gotham High, colliding against the head of one particular darkhaired student standing in the middle of the yard, out in the open, so unlike his usual location of choice beneath the large tree in the corner when waiting for school to start.

His uniform was getting soaked as he kept staring resolutely upwards, unconcerned about the water trickling down his face and ignoring the odd looks cast at him by the arriving students who all hurried past him to get into the building.

Damian Wayne couldn't care less about the rain, or the attention he was gathering. He'd thought the rain had been long overdue for a while now, and since he'd always been of the opinion that the sun was vastly overrated anyway, welcomed the change of pace. As a result, he had no issue getting a little wet as he stood here, waiting. His clothes would dry again in due time.

Although he had to admit that following the recent events that had transpired, the rain had certainly picked a poor time to arrive. While he rarely let his mood get affected by the meteorological advances outside of his control, he knew that the same couldn't be said about certain others, as he kept his eyes determinedly scanning the skies above, looking for signs of movement. Certain other people who had already gone through a rough enough time the day prior probably didn't need to have their emotional state impaired by the negative annotations typically associated with this type of gray weather.

He was so concentrated on spotting the flying figure descending beneath the clouds to land on the roof of the school building like he had the previous days, that he nearly missed the unmistakably messy black hair of Jonathan Kent walking straight past him towards the front doors of the school, moving fast with his head down, not acknowledging Damian at all.

It was such an unexpected change from the way the half-alien usually arrived, that Damian probably wouldn't have noticed him at all if it hadn't been for the wide berth the other students were giving him, seemingly afraid to approach him while not being able to help themselves shooting him many curious stares.

Damian turned on the spot to look after the boy who kept up his steady pace towards the school, ignoring the looks that were sent his way. Damian thought he could guess the reason for this increased interest in the Boy of Steel.

Lois Lane had been busy last night, calling both Dr. Leslie Thompkins and the School Staff to inform them of the... _episode,_ that her son had relayed to her about his visit to Sayori's home. She'd wasted no time in arranging an extended period of time for Sayori to stay at Thompkins' Clinic, where hopefully the girl would get the care and therapy sessions she needed, which given the unique relationship between the Thompkins and the Wayne family, Leslie had agreed upon giving her, free of charge.

After that, Lane had called the Gotham High Principal to let her know that due to these circumstances, Sayori would be taking some days off from school, and since the girl in question apparently didn't have any legal guardians to speak off, coupled with the fact that Lane had a very convincing (not to mention dominating) way of speaking where only very few people could find it in themselves to tell her "no" when she wanted something, the Principal had quickly given her permission to let Sayori get a break from classes until further notice, and had agreed with the Investigative Reporter to keep all of this in the strictest confidentiality.

Which naturally meant that there wasn't a single student at the school who didn't know about the exact nature of the suicide attempt and Jon's involvement in it, as they so elegantly showcased by staring at him in such awe that you'd think they knew about his status as a half-Kryptonian.

As Damian kept staring after Jon who was well on his way in reaching the school doors, he noticed that the gray school uniform he was wearing seemed... _off._ It was subtle, but it seemed as if it was stretched a little bit tighter around his body than it usually was, the body which in itself seemed a bit burlier around the torso area. And looking to the boy's arms, dangling by his side in typical teenage fashion as he walked, Damian noticed a hint of a blue sleeve underneath that of the gray uniform.

Damian raised an eyebrow, and started moving towards Jon when he realized what was going on.

Jon was wearing his Superboy jacket underneath the school uniform.

_It's worse than I thought._

"Kent!"

It didn't take long for Damian to catch up on his partner, colleague and friend who stopped up abruptly upon hearing his name called out. Damian stopped as well, a few feet behind him, unsure of how exactly to tackle the situation.

Jon turned his head slightly, not enough for Damian to be able to see his face.

"Not today, Damian." He said in a hoarse, muted voice, speaking over his shoulder. "Whatever it is you want to gloat over, or criticize me for this time, I can't do it today. I remembered to put on the glasses this time, so if that's all, please, just go away and leave me alone."

While normally, Jon would have been right in his assumption that Damian would have little else to offer him besides scolding, since it was arguably way worse for one's secret identity to wear your _actual_ super costume underneath your clothes than it was to forget your glasses, Damian knew that this wasn't what Jon needed today. Despite what people might think based on his behaviour, Damian wasn't _completely_ blind to social etiquettes.

Damian wasn't put off by Jon's less than welcoming response, and kept approaching from behind, undeterred. After all, it was still miles better than how _he_ would usually greet the boy, and now that Jon found himself in a state of increased vulnerability, Damian had to try and showcase some of that patience that Jon usually had to show him, and be there for his friend, whether he wanted it or not.

Because he knew Jon would do the same for him if their roles were reversed.

When he had deemed himself close enough to Jon who still had his back turned, he raised a hand, putting it gently on Jon's shoulder in what he hoped would be taken as a comforting gesture.

"Come on, Kent." He said, in a low voice of his own. "Even I'm not _that_ big a dick."

Slowly, Jon turned his head towards Damian, letting him see the magnified eyes behind the thick-rimmed glasses, usually blue and bright with hope, now bloodshot from what had to be crying, staring in silent surprise into Damian's.

Damian kept his hand on Jon's shoulder, and tried giving his best approximation of a friendly smile to Jon, hoping that he wasn't making himself look too creepy by doing so.

And to his relief, the corners of Jon's mouth slowly turned upwards as well. The smile was faint and weak, but it was there.

"How is she?" Damian asked.

Tears started forming in Jon's eyes as he responded, the smile disappearing again.

"N- not well." He said, voice quivering a bit. "I- I went down to her house this morning to s- see her off, make sure she g- got to the Clinic safely. That's why I walked to school instead of f- flying. She thought I was i- inconveniencing myself by doing it, and I think I j- just made her even more s- sad. We- we managed to make a deal, though, and agreed we'd text each other once per hour, just as a p- precaution. She- she o- only sends one word r- responses back, b- but-"

Jon's voice finally broke completely, and the tears started flowing freely down his face as he began sobbing, bending his head down.

"A- a- atleast she's replying! That's g- good, r- right?"

"It is." Damian said, and without further ado, he embraced the crying boy in a hug.

He felt Jon's shoulders tighten up in surprise at this uncharacteristic gesture from him, but they soon relaxed again, and he felt Jon's own arms around himself, hugging him back.

Damian was by no means a hugging person, as anyone who'd spent more than five minutes with him could attest to, and even now that he'd for once taken the initiative to do it, he despised being this close to another living being.

But right now, as of this moment, he knew that Jon's needs outweighed his own by quite a large margin, and as a result he had to throw away his selfish preservations to comfort his friend.

"T- thank y- you." Jon whispered gratefully into Damian's ear, still crying. "T- thank you s- so much. If- if it wasn't for y- your help yesterday over the p- phone, I- I don't know w- what w- would have- have-"

"Shh." Damian hushed him, clapping his back. "There's no need to thank me. You were the one who did all the work, I just gave a push and a few tips over the phone. _You're_ the reason she's still breathing right now, not me."

Not a lot of things shocked Damian these days. With the upbringing and training he'd had, along with the missions he'd been on, fighting side by side with God-like heroes, sometimes _against_ other God-like villains, and even coming out on top in most of these confrontations, it was easy to claim that he'd seen it all, and that nothing could surprise him anymore.

But even his heart had skipped a beat at the sudden turn Jon's phone call last evening had taken. He... hadn't expected that. At all.

He wasn't going to pretend like he had much emotional investment in Sayori. It took a lot of time for him to even start caring about his own teammates enough to learn their real names, so the attention he'd been paying the young bubbly bow-wearing girl had admittedly been minimal.

But even with that said, he should have been able to pick it up if someone this close to a friend of his was going to try and kill herself a few hours after getting home. He'd been trained in the art of detection by the Batman himself after all, so at least _some_ of the responsibility to notice these things fell upon him. It didn't matter from how many angles he looked at this case. Jon's finding of her in the noose was at least in some part a result of _his_ failure as a detective, and he would do his best to make up for that blunder.

"...thank you, Damian." Jon said, clutching his arms tighter around him, and Damian sighed. He raised his head above Jon's shoulder to catch the movement of a slightly taller than average student making their way towards them.

His eyes widened when he made out the mane of purple hair, so long that it easily reached down to her thighs.

"Crap!" He exclaimed, and broke the hug without hesitation.

"What's goi- hey!" Jon started asking, but Damian wasted no time in explaining as he grabbed hold of the boy's arm, dragging Jon with him straight into a nearby bush, pushing some leaves to the side to be able to look out and see if _she_ had spotted them.

"What the...!" Damian silenced the protesting boy with a palm to his mouth.

"Be quiet." Damian whispered, keeping his eyes glued to the girl who'd stopped up exactly where they'd been moments before, looking around confused, searching. He hoped they were concealed decently enough as her gaze lingered over the bush they were hiding in.

Jon easily managed to remove Damian's hand from his mouth.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" He whispered, angrily. "WHY are we in a bush right now?"

"Yuri." Damian whispered back, gesturing towards the purplehaired girl who'd begun scratching idly at one of her sleeves before shaking her head and moved into the school building. She was carrying three large, rolled up pieces of fabric which he recognized as being the banners he'd helped her make at her house the day prior.

 _Her house._ He couldn't quite suppress a shudder at the memory.

Damian sighed, relieved as the crisis was averted.

"I think we managed to lose her. That was way too close."

"I repeat." Jon started, as he made his way out of the flora. "What the hell, Damian? Are you really _this_ afraid of girls that you have to divebomb into the nearest bush when one approaches?"

Damian crawled out of the bush as well, forcing himself to refrain from scoffing. Jon was still emotionally compromised, and thus he couldn't be too harsh in his retorts, although he really thought _he_ had more reasons to complain about the current situation. Unlike him, the sharp twigs from the bush had no hope of puncturing _Jon's_ skin.

"I'm _not_ scared." He said, and brushed off his uniform for spare leaves. "Just not exactly keen on reliving what can only be described as a deeply upsetting experience from yesterday. That girl is _weird,_ Kent."

Jon rolled his eyes.

"In case you haven't noticed, you're a pretty far cry from the definition of normal yourself." Jon retorted.

"She had a knife collection. Something like twenty unique knives, all on display in her living room. And she kept... _touching_ me." Damian said, cringing inwardly as he relived the way her cold fingers would constantly find a place on his hands or shoulders.

Jon didn't seem impressed.

"You have a knife collection in the Batcave yourself, and-"

"They're _swords_ and _katanas_ from ancient times,it's different-" Damian interjected, but Jon talked over him.

" _-and,_ did you try explaining to her that you didn't like being touched?"

"That wouldn't have worked."

"You sure?" Jon asked. "Unlike you, I think Yuri actually respects boundaries. I don't think _she_ throws her friends into bushes, at any rate."

Jon really seemed to be focusing on the bush thing, for some reason.

"She hardly even listened to half the things I said." Damian said. "It was like she was stuck in her own little world, just... staring at me, distractedly. It was a wonder we even got any work done. I-"

Damian crossed his arms, and looked away from Jon.

"...I think she might actually be in love with me."

"Oh. Well in that case, I fully agree with you." Jon said, and Damian looked back to see an expression on his face that clearly didn't respect the seriousness of his retelling. "She has to be completely _insane!_ "

Damian resisted the urge to hit him, as futile as that would have been anyway, and instead opted to send a glare his way.

"Alright, I'm sorry." Jon said, sobering up. "I think I just might be a bit more irritable today than usual."

"Understandable, given what you've been through." Damian said, in a soft voice.

"Yeah." Jon sighed. "And then there's the whole Club thing today, which... won't be pleasant, given the circumstances."

"You know, you really don't have to go, if you don't want to." Damian said. He had his own problems and reasoning to dislike the Club, but even if he didn't, he could imagine how rough it would be to subject yourself to something that would without a doubt remind him strongly of a recent trauma. The Literature Club should be the _last_ place for Jon to go, in his opinion.

"No, no, I do have to go." Jon said. "Sa- Sayori made me promise not to abandon the Club because of her, since then there'd be too few members for it to keep going, and... and she doesn't want to be the reason it disbands."

Jon sniffed once, and dried away the tears that had once again swelled in his eyes at mentioning Sayori's name, with his sleeve.

Damian nodded to show that he understood, then sighed.

"Alright. In that case I'll attend for a while longer as well."

He hadn't planned on returning to the place after the unpleasant home visit to Yuri's, but he knew that if he stopped now, it would be little better than if Jon just straight up broke his promise to the girl. And besides, he couldn't just let him be alone up there with someone like Yuri present.

For Jon's sake, he would endure the Club.

"Thanks Damian." Jon shot him a grateful look. "I really appreciate you doing this for me, since I know how you feel about the girls up there."

"I think she took my pen when I wasn't looking yesterday." Damian muttered, not knowing how to properly respond to Jon's gratitude, and instead looked to the school door Yuri had just gone through. "Seriously. Who steals _pens?_ "

Jon sighed as he started heading into the building.

"Come on." He said. "Let's get to class."

* * *

"Damian! You're here!"

Getting greeted by the shrill, excited voice of Yuri the second he opened the door to the Club room was almost enough to make him consider turning around on the spot, leave the room, and throw Jon directly to the wolves, his promise to the boy be damned.

Instead, he opted to close his eyes for half a second in an effort to find his inner patience and strength, sighing inwardly before opening them yet again, seeing the tall girl standing right in front him, a wide, nervous smile visible on her face as she stared down at him with tiny, purple pupils.

"Hello, Yuri." He said, warily, staring back into her eyes. She seemed to be in even more of an intense mood than yesterday, as unlikely as that may sound.

Jon was a little behind as he too shuffled into the room discreetly, head bent low as if he was trying not to get noticed by anyone. He'd acted much the same way throughout the classes, only speaking up when directly spoken to, a thing most teachers and students avoided doing anyway. Although even the staff hadn't been able to keep themselves from staring a bit too long and hard at him.

While it seemed everyone had gotten the broad strokes of what had happened with Sayori, they were clearly starved for the full details of the story, which naturally made them give a bit more notice to the boy who could provide them with it. It was a good thing their common human decency prevented them from walking up to Jon and bombard him with questions.

Or maybe it had something to do with the fact that Damian had been following around Jon all day, taking on the mantle of being his bodyguard, with everyone knowing full well that if they were to bring up Sayori where he could hear it, he'd break their damn legs.

One of the two possibilities for certain. He didn't really care about which it was.

From behind Yuri, Damian saw that Monika was standing by the conjoined table, littered with white banners.

She looked up at the sound of their arrival, and smiled weakly when she saw them.

"Yuri was just showing us the banners you two made yesterday." She said, approaching them. Her eyes lingered on Jon's downcast head for a few seconds before she turned to make eye contact with Damian. "They look great, downright professional. Both of you really did a fantastic job with them."

"Yes, Damian was a _great_ help!" Yuri said in a breathy voice, reaching up with a hand to caress Damian's shoulder, causing him to suppress a shudder. "In fact, he made _everything better!_ There's no way I could have ever made them without him, and he's always welcome to visit me again, whenever. I have so much to show him, since I feel like we barely _scratched the surface_ yesterday!"

_I've faced down actual killers who didn't creep me out as much as this girl._

"That's good to hear." Monika nodded vaguely at Yuri, clearly not listening, as she turned her attention to Jon who was still just standing silently a little behind Damian.

"Hey, Jon." She said, quietly, in a gentle voice. "I'm glad you could come here today. I know how... hard, this must be for you, considering the circumstances."

"Yeah." Jon replied hoarsely, without looking up.

"If you need anything, anything at all, just let us know. We're all here for you."

Damian looked at Yuri, still staring at him, smiling that oblivious smile. He sincerely doubted that she was one of the people "there" for Jon like Monika said. He wondered if she even knew about Sayori, and whether or not she would care if she did.

"Thanks." Jon responded, and Monika reached around to clap him on the back.

"Let's head over to the meeting table." She said, gesturing for them all to come along. "I have something important I need to tell you."

As Damian followed her further into the classroom, he noticed that Yuri was walking right beside him, going so far as to very clearly deliberately sync up her legs to his walking pattern, her face flushing up when he looked up at her.

He rolled his eyes, and removed them from her to take in the rest of the room instead, noticing Natsuki was present too, leaned up against the wall at the far corner of the room, arms crossed in a stand-offish manner as she stared them all down with her fiery pink eyes, frowning.

But when her eyes fell on Jon, currently being guided along by Monika's hand on his back a little ahead of Damian and Yuri, her expression seemed to soften a bit, and she nodded once at him, with him nodding back.

This voiceless exchange seemed to go by unnoticed by everyone except for him. His feelings towards it was pretty neutral; while he had nothing except negative experiences with the pinkette, she and Jon seemed to get along decently, and she wasn't actively trying to get on _his_ bad side like she did to him for some reason.

"Okay, everyone." Monika said, her voice much more muted than it normally was when she announced what at this point might as well be her catchphrase. "As I'm sure you all know, the Festival has been delayed to tomorrow instead. The Principal said the reason for this was that a certain villain attack in a nearby city required the attention of most of the Justice League, including our special guest."

_Pretty reasonable, as far as justifications go._

Despite the fact that Damian hadn't seen any alert logs this morning on the direct feed he'd personally hacked into from the Watchtower that would warrant the attention of multiple League members, and certainly not any from the original Seven, he knew that it would be a hard thing to argue against for anyone who didn't have his kind of inside information.

"I... think we can all agree however, that there's a far more likely explanation for this delay." Monika sighed.

It was a pretty big telling point of people's priorities, that the school had somehow managed to keep the identity of the League member they'd gotten a secret from even Damian, while leaking almost everything about Sayori's situation.

He really hated humans.

Nobody spoke up after this, and Monika went on.

"Jon? I'm really sorry to bring up what must be such a sore subject for you, but..." The girl hesitated, and Jon's shoulders seemed to tense up at being addressed, but he managed to look up regardless to make eyecontact with Monika. "...if- if what I've gathered is correct, I understand you and your mom helped Sayori get to a Clinic, after... what happened?"

"Yes." Jon said, nodding once at Monika. Damian paid close attention to his body language, fully prepared to interfere with this confrontation the second it looked like Jon might need backup. "We did."

"I see. I'm so happy you did." Monika said. "Do you think maybe... you could tell me which Clinic she's at? Ever since I heard the news, I've been thinking about our time together at her house yesterday, and I just feel like I didn't... do _enough,_ if that makes sense. I'd just really like to see her again. So I can... talk to her."

Jon swallowed, and lowered his gaze.

"I'm sorry Monika, but she's... really not up for visitors at the moment." He said. "Of anyone. Even... even me."

He spoke the last two words with a voice that sounded just on the verge of breaking, and Monika seemed to get the hint.

"I fully understand, say no more." She said, clapping his back again before turning her attention to the rest of them.

"Okay, so, due to the unforeseen changes in the scheduling, and the shock I'm sure we all took regarding what happened to one of our own, I think we can allow ourselves a normal Club session today." Monika said. "We got the pamphlets, banners and I know Natsuki carried the cupcakes she and Jon made up to the fridge here so they can stay fresh for tomorrow, right?"

She looked over towards the pinkhaired girl who nodded once in confirmation.

"Alright. So, I'm thinking we just start off with some individual reading, and then later, if we feel like it, we can try and share the poems you made the other day. I think that's what Sayori would have wanted, if she'd been here today."

Nobody said anything, which could easily be translated to agreement throughout the Club, until Yuri broke the silence at Damian's side.

"You'll read with me again, right Damian?"

He looked towards the downright pleading voice, seeing Yuri was looking down at him with pure desperation in her eyes. It looked like she'd been waiting to ask this all day, barely able to contain her anticipation and excitement.

Damian glanced over at Jon for a quick second, noting how he sat down at the far end of the table, having grabbed the fantasy novel he'd been reading with Sayori previously. He still looked distraught from Monika's questioning.

He turned back to Yuri, who was still staring at him, patiently awaiting his response. If he stuck to his original plan in rejecting her wish to read together, he was quite certain she would cause a _scene,_ which in all likelihood would be very loud, very long, and would easily grab the attention of everyone here, which was the absolute _last_ thing Jon needed to happen today.

That was all Damian had to consider in order to make his decision.

"Sure." He half-said, half-sighed, signing his own funeral.

"Oh, thank you! You have no idea how much that means to me!" Yuri exclaimed happily, already dragging a chair over _way_ too close to his, before sitting down next to him.

 _You better appreciate what I'm doing for you, Kent._ Damian scowled as he reached into his bag to pull out Portrait of Markov, preparing himself for how slow and irritating this would be.

"Maybe we can have some cupcakes while we read?" Natsuki said, speaking up for the first time today as she approached the table. Her voice seemed quieter, less confrontational than what Damian was used to. "Me and Jon made a ton of them yesterday, so we can definitely all have one today without there being a shortage tomorrow for the Festival. Maybe they could... help take our minds off things."

She wasn't making eye contact with anyone, staring down at her own feet as she spoke.

"I like that." Monika said, smiling. "Great idea, Natsuki."

"I'll get a plate of them." Natsuki said, hurrying over to the fridge at the other end of the classroom.

"Hey, Jon?" Monika spoke up as Natsuki fumbled with the refrigerator. Jon looked up from his book with wide eyes. "Since you don't have a... _partner_ today, would you want me to come and read with you? It would be no trouble at all."

"That's... very kind of you to offer, Monika." Jon said, in a strained voice. "But I think that I'd really just prefer reading alone today, if that's okay."

"Of course. I understand." Monika said, smiling kindly at him.

 _Lucky him._ Damian thought, thinking he would very much like to have the option of refusing reading with _his_ "partner".

Monika sighed, and sat down at the middle of the table herself.

"Well, credit where it's due;" She said, pulling out her own book. "It was a good thing Sayori got as many members as she did. Even now with one absent, we still have enough to keep the Club running."

"Oh yes, I agree." Yuri said from Damian's side, reaching up to caress his shoulder once again, a gesture he tried to ignore as he paged forward in his book to find the spot they'd reached last time. "I much prefer our numbers as they are now. It's much more _intimate_ this way."

A loud crash made them all turn their heads to see Natsuki standing at the half-way point between table and fridge, a collection of broken porcelain pieces and cupcakes strewn across the floor at her feet.

She had an expression of pure shock on her face, as she stared down at the mess, her face flushed.

"Natsuki? Is something wrong?" Monika asked, looking concerned.

Natsuki turned her wide, almost fearful-looking eyes towards the Club President, and then her expression immediately returned to its usual vaguely annoyed frown.

"I seem to have dropped the plate." She muttered, in a deadpan tone. "Whoops."

"Do you need any hel-?" Monika tried to offer, already starting to rise from her chair, but Natsuki shook her head, interrupting her before she could complete the sentence.

"Nah, don't get up, I got it. You guys pay no mind to me, it's just clumsy old Natsuki being Natsuki as usual." She said, keeping up the monotone of her voice, almost sounding like she was trying to force an air of casualness into it, as she bent down to pick up the pieces. "You all just go back to your reading, and I'll have this cleaned up in a flash!"

Monika raised an eyebrow, but settled into her chair again without further arguments. She looked towards Jon who had already buried his head in his book again.

"What a clutz!" Damian heard Yuri whisper into his ear, an unmistakable sound of barely contained glee in her voice. "I bet you would never be careless enough to drop a plate like that, Damian!"

"That's correct." He responded back, uncaringly. No reason to deny the truth. He turned his attention away from the small girl still trying to gather up all the pieces of porcelain. "Shall we get started reading?"

"Oh yes, let's!" Yuri said, happily.

He suppressed a sigh, preparing himself for the upcoming hell, and looked down to start reading.

* * *

He felt an intruding poke on his shoulder blade, and looked up in annoyance to see Natsuki standing behind him with a needy look on her face.

"What?" He whispered, not quite able to keep the impatient growl out of his voice.

"I need your help." She whispered back.

He had to suppress a groan.

It hadn't even been two minutes since Yuri had had to excuse herself in order to go to the bathroom, after the downright eternity of their "reading session," if one could even call it that. He'd been 99% sure the purple-haired girl hadn't even attempted to _pretend_ she was reading this time, with the way she'd had to be reminded to turn the pages by him, and instead using all that time to breathe heavily down his neck. It had been a downright miracle when she'd told him he could continue reading without her while she took care of whatever business she had in the bathroom, allowing him to finally read at an acceptable pace.

Only to have one annoyance replaced with another, in the form of this obnoxious, pink gremlin.

"What is it?" He asked, looking at her with all the indifference he could muster.

"I finished Volume One of my manga." She whispered, raising her hand to show him the book she was holding with the same scantily clad cat-eared woman on the cover as he'd seen last Tuesday. "I need to get Volume Two, but Monika put it on the top shelf in the cabinet for some reason, and I need you to reach it for me."

Damian raised an eyebrow. This problem of hers seemed very contrived.

"Can't you just get a stool or something?" He asked back, wishing she would just go away so he could finally gain some page count in his book before Yuri returned.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Natsuki whispered back in a mocking tone. "I'm not about to stand on a podium to give _you_ of all people a chance to peek up my skirt!"

 _"-TT-"_ Damian scoffed, rolled his eyes at her childish suggestion, and turned his attention back to the book again. "Do what you wish, just don't bother me with it."

Through the corner of his eyes, he caught her shrugging uncaringly at his dismissal of her.

"Fine, l'II ask Jon instead then. He's taller than you, anyway."

Damian's eye twitched.

"Where is this cabinet?" He asked, rising from his chair, mentally throwing all the vast amount of curses he knew at the girl.

"Right over there!" Natsuki said, pointing towards the end of the room where two closed doors could be seen. Damian tried to ignore the smugness in her voice, as he moved towards the doors, consigned to his fate. It wasn't her thinly veiled insult about his height that made him do this, that would be ridiculous. He just didn't want her to bother Jon with this today, that was all.

Yes, that was it. Totally.

Having arrived at the doors, he sighed as he took hold of the handles and opened them, revealing the dark room of various school supplies and books on the other side. He glanced upwards to where he could see, as Natsuki has said, the white backs of manga volumes on the top shelf.

He considered the best way for him to reach them, briefly thinking about using Natsuki's shoulders as a foothold, before a hard push to his back made him stumble fully into the cabinet room.

"What the-!?" He exclaimed, his brain already in fight mode, as Natsuki stepped inside as well, plunging the room into total darkness by closing the doors.

"Shh!" Natsuki's voice shushed him. "Shut up, and be quiet."

"What is the meaning of this?!" Damian sneered. If this irritating girl thought _she_ could ambush the son of Batman just by tricking him inside a dark room, she had another thing coming. His eyes were already getting accustomed to the darkness, and he could make out her faint silhouette right in front of him in the cramped room. Standing this close, she had no hope of winning.

"Keep your voice down, dummy. I need to talk to someone about this, before I go insane." Natsuki whispered, annoyed.

"I suspect you're already way past that if you think you can keep me trapped in here-"

"Oh, give it a rest, will you?" Natsuki whispered back, impatiently. "I didn't 'trap' you anywhere. I just needed an excuse for us to talk in private, away from Monika and Yuri. Now, are you ready to listen, or will you keep being a drama queen?"

Damian was tempted to blow her off and kick his way out of this room he'd been forced into. He didn't need the shenanigans of another cracked girl in his life, and if she would be foolish enough to try and stop him, well... she would discover her mistake the hard way.

But something about the desperation in her voice when she'd mentioned the two other girls, peaked his curiosity just enough to want to hear her out.

"Fine." He said, crossing his arms. He was starting to be able to make out the pink of her eyes in front of him, staring. "Speak. This better be good."

"I shall try to make it worth you while, your Highness." She sneered back at him, before she spoke up in a more level voice. "Something... _weird,_ is going on here. People are behaving really strange."

He raised an eyebrow.

"You don't say." He said, sarcasm dripping from every syllable of his voice. "I've noticed this too, actually. There's this particular annoying girl for instance, who shoves people into school cabinets at random!"

"Hardy har." Natsuki fake laughed. "You're so hilarious. Shut up."

He scowled back at her, but kept quiet.

"Lately, I've noticed that the girls here have been acting... really out of character. Originally I thought it was just us being awkward around eachother going to this new Club all together, coupled with the strange headaches everyone seems to be suffering from, but given what's happened lately, I don't think so anymore. Something else is going on here, and I think it's got something to do with Monika."

"What do you mean?" Damian asked, crossing his arms skeptically. He didn't know where Natsuki was going with this, but atleast it was more interesting than whatever was going on in the classroom, and it was nice to finally have someone else who agreed with him that the girls were odd. She just so happened to be one of the odd girls herself.

"Take Yuri for instance." Natsuki went on. "I've known her for the longest time, and while I'm aware we're kinda opposites to eachother, I know she's kind, sweet and a _good person,_ who'd never let that fucking insensitive comment Monika said about Sayori fly like that."

"Insensitive?" Damian asked. There was a sound of an impact, and he could just make out that Natsuki had slapped a palm against her own face.

"Sorry, I forgot I was speaking to a sociopath for a moment there. Yes, saying that it's a good thing that the _suicidal victim_ got enough members for a Club so it wouldn't shut down while she's _at a Clinic after almost dying,_ IS very insensitive, big shock! And Yuri just agreed with her, like that, even saying she _prefers_ it like this while making googly eyes at you! That's not normal, and that is _not_ the Yuri I know!"

"Maybe you just don't know her as well as you thought?" Damian suggested.

"I know her better than _anyone_ in this entire school!" Natsuki said, with such conviction in her voice that there was no doubting the fact that _she_ at least believed it wholeheartedly. "And because of that, I know how much she treasured someone like Sayori as a friend, and wouldn't let a new crush like you distract her to the point of disregarding her like that. Seriously, I've seen Yuri get obsessed over boys before, but nowhere near the amount she currently has- totally unjustified, by the way- on you. Atleast with her other crushes, they had the excuse of being somewhat attractive and _nice_ to her, not to mention she didn't just meet them three days ago!"

Damian grit his teeth, being as ticked off as only Natsuki could make him, while still feeling kind of relieved that someone else besides him had noticed the absurd amount of affection he'd gotten from Yuri lately. Natsuki still annoyed him, but at least she wasn't blind.

"It's like-" She hesitated, trying to find her words for it. "It's like she's completely stopped caring about everything. Like there's no room in her mind for anyone or anything besides you. She's always had a bit of trouble being around other people, but this... this is just creepy."

A hint of insecurity crept into her voice, as she hesitated further, and Damian decided to move the conversation along impatiently.

"So that's your reason for thinking something's going on? That a girl is acting differently from what you thought you knew?"

"Nah, that was just the final nail that confirmed it beyond doubt for me." She responded, her voice returning to normal. "Even someone as robotic as you has to admit that the change in Sayori was all too sudden, right? No one goes from being the happiest they've ever appeared in weeks, to trying to hang themselves through the course of less than a day. I know she's had a habit of hiding her true feelings, but she's not _that_ good an actor."

Damian had to begrudgingly agree with her on that one, seeing how that aspect had bothered him as well. Still, as far as theories went, it didn't seem to hold much water to him.

"So what makes you think it's Monika? How would she even have gone about doing this?" He asked, trying his hardest to give Natsuki the benefit of the doubt here.

"I don't know." She said, sounding frustrated. "I don't know her nearly as well as the others, so I don't have an exact read on her yet. And while I think she's begun acting off too, compared to how she was the first week, it's... different, somehow."

Damian's eyes had gotten so used to the darkness now that he could clearly make out the look of pure determination she flashed at him with her bright, pink eyes.

"Whatever it is, and whether or not she's behind this, I don't trust her."

Damian considered her words, still skeptical about the case as she was presenting it to him. There were quite a few flaws he could find already, a big one in particular that he had to ask about before this went any further.

"Why tell me?" He asked.

It was the thing that had bothered him ever since she'd pushed him in here and told him she had to talk to him. He might not be the best at using his "social skills" as people kept telling him, but he'd been under the impression that both him and Natsuki shared a mutual dislike for eachother, if not downright hatred, and letting your enemy in on suspicions you were obviously trying to keep a secret from the rest of the group, didn't exactly seem right with him.

"Believe me when I say that you weren't my first choice at all." Natsuki explained, sounding grossed out at the very idea. "I would much rather be telling Jon all of this, but Monika has been watching over him like a hawk ever since he entered the room. I couldn't get close to him without tipping her off to something, and if she really does have something to do with this, I can't raise her suspicions. I had to make do with the next best thing when Yuri left, and in case you couldn't tell from the dark, I just used huge sarcasm quotes when I said 'best.'"

Damian considered her. During the extended periods of waiting in vain for Yuri to flip a page, he had noticed that Monika's green eyes would more often than not be pointed straight at Jon instead of the book she was supposed to be reading. He'd originally chalked this up as her being just another curious student who wanted to know exactly what happened at Sayori's house yesterday, and he stood by that since it still sounded much more likely than whatever it was Natsuki was suggesting, but it was something to think about.

"Besides, you and Jon seem pretty chummy, if that hug I caught this morning in the yard was anything to go by. The moment I saw that, I knew you couldn't be a _complete_ dick." Natsuki said, smirking smugly.

He scowled. Of course she'd seen that.

"Anyway, if you could tell Jon about this, that would be great. And just... keep your eyes open and alert, and tell me if you find anything, because something fishy's going on here, I just need to find out _wha-"_

Natsuki went silent as heavy footsteps from outside the cabinet could be heard fast approaching, before Damian was blinded by the massive cascade of light illuminating everything when the cabinet doors were violently opened without ceremony.

His body tensed, once again in attack mode, as he raised a hand to shield against the bright electronic lights, whilst squinting to identify the tall, humanoid shape who had opened the doors.

At last, he started to be able to make out the purple colours of the figure's long hair, and the feminine features of her face as she glared down at them.

Yuri did not seem happy to see them.

"What," She started, in a furious voice she was clearly trying to keep as calm as possible. "Are you _doing_ in here?"

Damian relaxed, calmly meeting her eyes, unconcerned with the clear anger on her face. It wasn't like _he_ had done anything wrong, and even if he had, he wouldn't let this girl think she could intimidate him.

But he noticed as his visibility got clearer, that Yuri's purple irises, which had definitely gotten smaller than they'd been before, was trained directly on Natsuki instead of him.

"Yuri!" Natsuki exclaimed, in a surprisingly friendly and casual tone, a wide, sweet smile stretching along her face, uncharacteristically void of her usual smugness or cynicism. "Fancy meeting you here, what's up?"

 _She's a good actor._ Damian thought, mildly impressed by just how quick she'd switched over to this mode from how she'd been before. But ironically, because of how unexpected her sudden change had been, it only made her seem more suspicious to Yuri as her eyes narrowed at her.

"Why are you in here?" She repeated harshly, ignoring Natsuki's attempt at appearing nice. "And why is Damian with you?"

"Oh, I just borrowed him for a few seconds." Natsuki said, in the same casual voice, meeting Yuri's eyes without blinking. "Monika placed my manga on the top shelf, and I needed him to reach the second volume for me, but he somehow managed to shut both of us into the cabinet, and then we both started laughing at how clumsy he is!"

Damian furrowed his brows at her unflattering lie as she giggled innocently to further sell her story, but decided against correcting her. He really could not bring himself to care about how it must have seemed to Yuri, finding them both in this cramped dark room, so close to eachother. He'd outgrown being embarrased at such things by the age of two.

Yuri kept her eyes narrowed at Natsuki, as if she was scanning her face for lies. Finally, she looked up, and with a quick movement she snatched one of the manga from the top shelf, reaching it effortlessly, and pushed it into Natsuki's open hands with such force that the smaller girl actually had to take a few steps back.

"Next time, get a stool." Yuri sneered at Natsuki, before grabbing a firm hold of Damian's wrist, dragging him ungently along with her when she turned around to walk back to the meeting table.

Annoyed by being treated like some sort of toy by the taller girl, Damian looked behind him as he was forced to follow Yuri, seeing Natsuki still standing in the opened cabinet, her expression having been reverted to one of worry and concern as she looked after him. She opened her mouth, and he saw her lips move in exaggerated movements, allowing him to read her unspoken words.

_"Tell me if you find anything!"_

Damian furrowed his brows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, fun fact about this chapter. Ever since I first planned out this whole story and wrote down the guidelines, I knew this was going to be long, just with the sheer amount of stuff I wanted to have happen in it. Back then, I was very much of the mind that it didn't matter how long a chapter was, even if it was like a hundred pages, and even then, I was hesitant about this chapter's length.
> 
> Cut back to months ago, when I had finished writing the first three chapters, and suddenly I got this particular scene in my head, (which will come up in a few days- I'm actually making this a three-parter!) and I just immediately wanted to add it to my story. Problem was, the only place I could find where it would fit, was the chapter I'd already dubbed "The Long Chapter" in my mind.
> 
> So naturally, I added it, making the overly long chapter a couple of thousand words longer than it needed to be. And now I'm making it even longer by writing these notes.
> 
> It's The Long Chapter. Might as well go all the way, right?
> 
> Thank you, Kariminal, for being a constant source of positive reinforcement in my comment section. You da real superhero!
> 
> I did worry a bit before posting if I made Superman a bit too pessimistic. I was trying to mirror a pretty popular part of a comic, in which he talks down a woman about to jump off a building. In that, I noticed that instead of him just making a hopeful, inspirational speech, there were moments where he basically told her that the world is unfair, that he doesn't have all the answers, and that if she truly thought she wouldn't ever have a day worth living again, even though he didn't approve of her decision, he wouldn't catch her if she jumped.
> 
> I wanted to incorporate a bit of that mindset into this, but it's entirely likely that I fudged it up in doing so, and instead made him come across as a bit of a jerk, but oh well. Glad you liked the chapter regardless!


	10. Sins of the Father pt B

Walking down the narrow staircase that one could find only if they knew how to, behind the old grandfather clock in the Wayne Manor living room, Damian breathed in the familar damp air that felt so welcoming after being stuck in classrooms for the whole day, finally feeling a sense of being home as he turned a corner and entered the Batcave.

When he'd first seen how his father had chosen to decorate his base of operations, he'd admittedly scoffed, thinking him childish and sentimental for keeping all of those trophies, the most noticable of which being the oversized Penny displayed in one of the corners, and of course the life-sized animatronic Tyrannosaurus Rex standing tall and proud on the middle platform of the cave. He'd thought this, along with the glass displays showcasing the various costumes his father's partners had worn throughout the years were immature and completely unneccesary.

And to a certain degree, he still thought that. But a couple of years spent training, meditating, solving cases and essentially living down here had given him a certain familiarity with the place, causing him to develop something of a sentimental appreciation for the items displayed. The animatronic dinosaur still served no purpose at all, but though he would never admit this to anyone should they ask, it _did_ look pretty cool.

He stopped for a moment on one of the top steel platforms built into the black rock that made up the walls, scouring over the cave to confirm that it was empty.

It wasn't a lot of people that came down here except for him lately. He knew Alfred would go down here at least once per day to clean the guano left by the bats currently hanging from every available inch of free space in the ceiling, but he usually only did that at night, when he'd finished his duties in the rest of the Manor. His father still used the cave regularly, but he'd been preoccupied working with the so-called "top minds" of the Justice League for the last few days, trying to solve some problem regarding wormholes and planets somewhere in space.

Damian scowled at the thought. If it really was that big an issue, you'd _think_ his father would have let him come along to try and work out a solution instead of making him waste his time at that school. Sure, the problem seemed to have even Mr. Terrific stumped, but that just made him want to join in and show off his own brilliance more. If he could out-problemsolve the inventor of the T-Spheres himself, then he would never let his father (or anyone else, for that matter) hear the end of it.

He listened closely, taking in the idle sounds of water dripping from stalactites, and the cries from a few sleepy bats echoing through the cave. It certainly seemed empty. When Grayson, Drake and Todd were down here training, you could normally tell from a mile away just because of all the noise and mess they left in their wake, and since it was mostly them who ever visited, it was a safe bet to assume no one else was hiding in any nooks and crannies.

Kane, being as mission-oriented as she was, rarely saw the need to pay social visits, a thing that Damian respected and could definitely relate to.

There was nothing really left for Gordon to do here when she had most of her tech in her clocktower and couldn't really use most of the training equipment in here due to her limited movement of being confined to a wheelchair.

Kyle, while being as unpredictable as the felines she'd named herself after, could be reasonably expected to only show up when his father was home to "play" with her, this aspect of their relationship having been kept up even after their recent marriage.

And Thomas? Damian wasn't even sure about _what_ Duke Thomas actually did, but whatever it was, you sure didn't see him around a whole lot.

As he glanced down towards the gym area, he noticed that there were definite traces of some of the former Robins having used it recently, with the weights being scattered around on the floor randomly, and the protein bar wrappers he knew Drake liked laying on the floor for Alfred to pick up later.

Damian briefly thought about how odd it was that he always saw the evidence of them having been there, but rarely ever saw them around when he went down here. He tried (and failed) not to think about what Stephanie Brown had told him when he'd voiced this observation out loud at the last meeting, and how she'd said that they had all memorized his schedule and made sure to only enter the cave at times when they knew _he_ wasn't present.

He grimaced. Sometimes that girl could annoy him far more effectually than Natsuki could ever hope to accomplish.

_"Tell me if you find anything!"_

At the thought about the pinkhaired Club member, he remembered back to her last unspoken request at him, coupled with that pleading look in her wide, pink eyes that he couldn't seem to shake from his mind no matter how hard he tried.

He sighed, and began walking down the narrow staircases, making his way down towards his own self-assigned space of the Batcave, marked by a large, iron door ingraved into which were the large, spiral letters spelling out **"ROBIN- NO ONE ENTER- ESPECIALLY YOU, RED HOOD."**

The door had no handle, but Damian merely planted his palm on a clear surface, allowing the scanner to recognize his handprint, causing the door to slide upwards with a loud _whoosh._

When he'd entered the small, yet surprisingly spacious tunnel-like section of the cave that he'd claimed as his own, and the door had sealed itself once again, he allowed himself a brief moment to just stop, close his eyes, and relax a little, lowering his shoulders as he exhaled. He didn't lower his guard entirely, he never did that, since the cave had been invaded a few too many times by intruders to be considered completely safe, but it was close to it. And since he'd designed a few of his own security measures for this room independant from the ones already in place at the main cave entrance, he could allow himself to feel more at ease here than he could at any other place on or outside of the planet.

This was his home.

Then, the moment passed, and he opened his eyes again, already prepared for the work ahead.

He walked past the bottles and tubes of his chemical experiments, the ancient armor stands and blades he'd collected throughout the years, until he found himself in front of a large cooling unit.

He opened one of the drawers in it, and looked down among the many glass vials contained within, searching for the ones that would help him with this particular case.

Normally the worries of some random school girl, and particularly one like Natsuki who already irritated him immensely, would be near the bottom of his priority list for cases to look into, but... he was bored.

The last few nights of patrol had been so uneventful. It seemed like every single petty criminal of the Gotham underworld had taken a break with not so much as a purse-snatcher being on the streets. It said something about the average nights lately when even without the dramatic turn it had taken, Jon's phone call yesterday had been the most intense thing to happen the whole week.

Plus, during this down period, he'd seen that Barbara Gordon had flagged all the interesting-looking cold cases they'd hacked from the GCPD, as a bit of light homework for herself now that she wasn't needed elsewhere, solving them all from the comfort of her Clocktower, and Damian just didn't _feel_ like spending his effort on trying to solve them before her for the bragging rights.

It was sad to say, but Natsuki's theory about something strange happening at their Club was without contest the most interesting case he'd had since the Brainiac attack, even if it turned out to be nothing, as he suspected.

And thus, he grabbed hold of the four vials from the cooling unit once he'd identified the name tags tied around their nozzles, and carried them with him out of his room, holding them up against the bright lights installed in the cave to make sure the samples hadn't been contaminated.

Each glass vial held within it a thick, dark red liquid, with each one of the small name tags spelling out a different name: Sayori, Natsuki, Yuri and Monika.

The blood samples of each girl in the Literature Club, gathered by him on the very first day of school.

As he walked towards the large collection of screens near the middle of the Cave making up the Batcomputer, he thought about how trivially easy it had been to poke each one of the unsuspecting females in the Club with a needle and extracting a bit of their blood. Each time he'd skulked around one of them, waiting for the perfect moment to strike, prepared to make it seem like a mosquito bite or whatever else he'd had to come up with, but he needn't have bothered. As it turned out, if you operated the needle precisely and quickly enough like he had, the girls wouldn't even notice the intrusion on their skin.

It was something he did to every team or gathering of people he would have to spend an extended amount of time with, just as a precaution. It was for their own good really, a way to quickly determine what bloodtype the people he would be working with had without having to waste time asking questions, in order to quickly provide the correct transfusion in the case of injury. Not to mention it being a great way to test for weaknesses of his more enhanced "super" teammates, allowing him to quickly plan a contingency should they turn bad. Compared to the beings with "unbreakable" skin like Jon, getting the blood of four girls with average durability was a complete non-issue.

Standing in front of the many monitors, he pressed a few buttons on the massive keyboard underneath, causing a small compartment to open near the bottom of the computer, into which he inserted each of the vials. The compartment closed again, and Damian sat down in the chair by the keyboard, looking up what files he could find on each one of the girls in turn, taking note of everything he could discover about them while waiting for the blood analyzer to finish scanning the samples for any abnormalities.

He knew Natsuki had pointed out Monika in particular as the potential cause of the mood swings in the Club, but he preferred to reach his own conclusions and to not let his jugdment be tainted by possibly biased opinions. Which he would accomplish by unraveling every aspect of each girl's personal life.

He felt something small, light and furry on his legs, and looked down with mild interest to see Alfred having jumped up and setlling himself in his lap. Alfred as in the cat he'd gotten a few years ago that was, not the human. Obviously. Damian absentmindedly scratched him behind the ears, before raising his head towards the screen again.

He didn't really expect to find out anything unusual doing this. Hell, he didn't even fully buy into Natsuki's worried theory theory about the Club members. The only reason he did this was that it couldn't hurt to check, and be thorough, especially when he had nothing else to do.

He finished his dig-through of Sayori, Natsuki and Yuri's files, discovering nothing really worth of note about them. They had some unusual living conditions, particularly in Sayori and Yuri's cases, as a result of the untimely deaths of their parental figures, but otherwise they were clean. No history of prior arrests, cover-ups, or anything that would help him with this "case," if one could even call it that.

All in all, completely in line with what he'd expected.

He moved on to Monika, having started with the others because of how their fairly unique names would be easier to find when he'd never bothered with learning their last names, than a more common name like Monika. But a person of his skill level, coupled with the Batcomputer's tech, quickly made short work of finding her file as well.

He raised an eyebrow as he read about her. He had to admit he hadn't expected this of the Club President.

As it turned out, she was apparently the youngest daughter of a very renowned and wealthy family with quite a bit of influence as they costantly traveled the globe, settling deals all around the world. Their fortune was small, barely even a drop in the water when compared to that of the Waynes, but it was still enough for them to live comfortably in a mansion on the outskirts of the city.

Doubled with that, Monika seemed to be something of an honour student at Gotham High, her teachers all singing her praise, her grades second to none (atleast for now- give him a few more weeks, and Damian was sure he could surpass her) and just in general being the image of a perfect, hard working student liked by everyone.

She was clean.

Too clean.

Damian dug deeper, focused on finding something, anything that could be considered tarnishing. Nothing made him more suspicious of someone than when they had a seemingly spotless record, especially with someone as wealthy as this, when he knew a family with this amount of power and money could easily pay the right people to wipe pretty much anything incriminating short of murder from their permanent record.

And after a few minutes of hacking into the right accounts, he found it. They had tried very hard to hide it, but obviously not hard enough to throw Damian off their trail as he opened up the file of Monika's medical records.

_Wait, that's it?_

He frowned slightly, disappointed as he read through it. _This_ was what they had gone through all the effort of hiding? It was hardly even that bad, just a simple mental condition, and a mild one at that! He supposed it was pretty uncommon for it to manifest in that young of an age, but it was hardly unheard of. As long as she made sure to take her prescribed medication, there wasn't any reason at all to be embarrassed or worry about it.

Although he did take note of the fact that according to the file, she had neglected to get a refill of her pills this week. But that was hardly something to even consider being suspicious about, and certainly nothing that warranted any further research on his part. Clearly, Natsuki's concerns could be disregarded as that of a paranoid girl's ramblings and-

A _ding_ sound shook Damian from his thoughts as he looked up at the monitor again, seeing a pop-up displaying the results of the blood test. As he'd expected, there were no signs of any abnormalities in the blood of Natsuki, Yuri, Sayori, and-

He had to do a double take as his eyes settled on Monika's results, and sat a little more upright in the chair, a gesture the snoozing Alfred audibly protested. _This_ wasn't normal for sure, didn't belong anywhere near someone like Monika, and was far more concerning than the attempted cover-up of her mental issues.

There was something running through her body which Damian thought he recognized from someone he knew all too well.

Quickly opening another tab on the screen, he looked up the file of one Harleen Francis Quinzel, searching for the documented result of her blood tests from the many times she'd been incarcerated at Arkham Asylum. Finally he found it, and compared the unusual chemicals in her blood with Monika's.

It was a match. Both Harley Quinn and Monika had traces of the same serum in their bloodstream, an unreplicable plant-based solution which would make the average human incredibly resistant to most toxins and poisons, and also generally increase their physicals.

A serum that could have only been made by one particular woman in the world.

Despite the worrying implications that came with this revelation, Damian smirked to himself, and began pulling up a map of Gotham City, scanning for recent unusual traces of toxins and plant life in the city, as well as eye-witness reports of last known sightings of the femme fatale duo. He still didn't see how, or even if this tied back to what Natsuki had been saying, but Monika having any connection to these two women at all was definitely worth investigating closer. Finally, this case was getting _interesting._

He _felt_ more than heard the sudden presence behind him, his trained senses picking up the slight movement that seemed _way_ too close to him. Without hesitation, he grabbed one of the spare Batarangs lying on the Batcomputer control panel, and spun his chair around as fast as he could, throwing the projectile against the assailent, only to have it collide uselessly against the animatronic dinosaur behind him with a loud _klink_ , no sign of anyone there.

Insulted at this sudden movement, Alfred hissed and meowed loudly, quickly jumping down and retreating from Damian into the darkness of the cave.

He narrowed his eyes, searching every square inch of space in front of him, trying to listen beyond the idle sounds of water drips, bat screams and electrical whirring. Nothing came up, and there wasn't the slightest hint of anyone else besides him being present in the cave. Not even his father would be capable of stealth to this level _._

Which meant it could only be one possible person.

 _She's improved._ He thought, impressed. He relaxed again, and spun his chair around again to see how far along the Batcomputer had gotten in scanning for possible Poison Ivy hideouts. Almost immediately he felt the presence behind him again.

"Let me guess." He spoke aloud, voice echoing in the seemingly empty room. "You're bored as well?"

There was no reply. He didn't expect her to respond when she was in one of her _playful_ moods. Not to mention that she generally didn't really talk much.

He respected that aspect about her, and definitely preferred it to other blabbermouths like Grayson.

At last, the computer finished its scan, zooming in on an old warehouse at one of the abandoned building districts in Amusement Mile.

Damian gave one of his rare triumphant smiles. Finally, something worthy of his attention.

"Well, since it doesn't look like you have anything better to do today," Damian said, rising from the chair in order to suit up, without looking at the figure standing behind him since no matter how fast he turned his head, she would be out of sight the moment he did it. "Perhaps you would like to tag along on this drive-by?"

Dead silence. An unmistakable mark of consent from her.

Damian's smile widened.

* * *

"Alrighty ladies and germs! Give it up for the Queen of Flora and Conqueror of Fauna herself, Poooison Ivyyy! Bow down to yer knees and get ready ta worship this holiest of holy women, all night long!"

Damian had just finished picking the lock of the door by the end of the tunnel he'd found himself in when he entered the Warehouse and already he could hear the intrusive high-pitched voice of Harley Quinn, yelling at an even louder volume than usual, as if she was making an announcement to a crowd of people.

He pushed open the door, and could feel the dampness in the air on his skin, as if he'd just entered a greenhouse. Plants of all varieties were spread thickly all over throughout the room like a jungle, making it hard to see anything.

He was definitely at the right place.

"I have to say, I'm never exactly certain as to _where_ you're going with these crazy antics of yours Harls, but you sure never fail to make it entertaining when you get started."

He heard the calm, bemused voice of Poison Ivy, sounding as if she was mildly amused by whatever she was seeing, blocked from his own view by the rich jungle all around him.

He had to navigate the terrain slowly, being careful to avoid contact with the plethora of vines strewn about the ground and hanging from the ceiling. If he wanted to keep his element of surprise over those two, he couldn't afford to touch as much as a fallen leaf and alert the woman physically connected to all the plantlife in the room.

Their voices were growing louder and clearer the closer to the middle he got.

"That's the idea Pammie! I'm never sure what I'm on about myself, I just do whatever it is that seems fun in the moment! Ya just sit back, relax, and enjoy the show!"

As he made his way through the narrow walkways free of trees, bushes, flowers and whatever else they had growing in here, he took a few seconds to adjust the green gauntlets on his arms, making sure the blades embedded in them by the lower side of his arms were sharp as ever. When he came across a particularly heavy-looking log blocking the path he was using, Damian bent his knees before jumping over it, the sound of his landing absorbed by the special soles of his equally green boots.

The walkway made a turn, and he reached up to touch the emerald mask across his eyes, and the world of green around him turned ghostly blue when he activated its thermographic mode, allowing him to see two heat signatures directly at the end of the turn, confirming the villainesses' location. He switched it off again, and pulled the hood built into his cape across his head, as he continued to walk along the path with confidence and determination.

As always, it felt good wearing the Robin uniform again.

"Oh, don't worry." Poison Ivy purred silkily. "As long as you keep wearing that, I'm sure I'll be enjoying whatever it is you're going to do."

"Ha! Ya got it Red, anything fer ya! It's so good ta have ya back ta normal again!"

"Likewise. But let's not tarnish this day with bad memories like that, and get back to what you were doing- worshipping me."

Damian rounded a corner of the maze-like jungle, where he saw a clearing of sorts, a huge round space in the middle of the warehouse, completely surrounded by trees reaching all the way up to the ceiling. And in the middle of that clearing, he was treated to one of the more bizarre sights he'd seen in recent days.

A flower throne, elevated high above the ground on a pedestal of green leaves, held firmly in place by thick, brown branches snaking around the vegetation. The throne itself was comprised of a million flowers of all shapes and sizes systematically placed in order of colour, going from red at one side to orange, to yellow and so on, giving the glorified chair the appearance of a rainbow.

And seated in the throne, looking down from her ivory tower with a self-satisfied smirk across her face, recognizable from afar due to her green skin and fiery red hair, was Poison Ivy.

It seemed she had chosen today to wear a much more conservative outfit than how she normally dressed, a wide, elegant flowing dress made of ferns reaching all the way down to cover up her crossed legs, her shoulders adorned with pads of spiky cactus securing a long shawl of nettles going down her back. On top of her head, placed over her scarlet hair was a collection of branches that reached around her forehead, sharp edges pointed straight upwards like a wooden crown, and just to complete the royal "Queen" look she seemed to be going for, one of her hands were clutching a finely sculpted stick like a scepter.

Her eyes were glancing downwards, blind to Damian standing at the far edge of the clearing, giving her full attention to Harley Quinn whom it appeared didn't share Ivy's sentiment to show less skin. Quite the contrary, actually.

"Right-a-roonie! Ya just keep that bodacious booty a' yers firmly planted where it is, and watch this! I watched a video tutorial on how ta bellydance, and I think I'm gettin' pretty dang good at it!" The female jester exclaimed, twirling around to give Ivy and unknowingly Damian as well, a better look at her outfit of choice.

She was dressed in what appeared to be a tribute to the socalled "Hula Girls" one would often find as a bubble-head figure on the dashboards of cars and trucks, complete with long strands of grass covering the bottom area of her body down to her knees, and what looked like two coconut shells, one painted red and the other black, used like a bra over her torso area. The rest of her pale body was completely exposed, but in a strange twist all this was nowhere nearly as noticable as her headgear.

While normally a typical jester cap in her trademark split colours of red and black would decorate her head, with obnoxious bells loudly announcing her every movement, a wide basket of sorts, constructed from a brown, ropey material had now replaced it, perched on top of her head, hiding her blonde hair from sight.

And as if that wasn't enough, the basket was littered with various fruit products like bananas, oranges, apples, grapes, and many more variants of fruit, all stacked on each other so high it was a wonder Harley was able to move so fluidly without losing her balance.

Damian suppressed a groan. This was going to get _quirky,_ wasn't it?

"Ooh. Now _that_ I gotta see!" Poison Ivy exclaimed, and leaned a bit more forwards in her throne, an excited look on her face at hearing Quinn's announcement.

Damian couldn't exactly relate to her feelings, and made his decision at that moment, before this surreal scene he'd walked in on had a chance to escalate further.

"Do I even _want_ to know?" He drawled out loud, announcing his presence to the criminals as he stepped out of the shadows and into the clearing, his voice slightly muffled from the transparent mask strapped over his mouth and nose to protect him from the toxins and pheromones this room was undoubtedly full of.

Harley's face, having just stretched into a wide smile at having successfully enticed her partner, changed to that of shock and horror at hearing his voice, and she gave a loud, surprised yelp when she turned her head sharply to see him, with a few cantaloupes falling out of her fruit basket in the process.

"Uh, Ivy?!" She yelled in fear, staring at Damian with a look of pure disbelief as she tried and failed to position her arms to cover up her exposed body from his view. "The bird boy has infiltrated our secret base! And not the cute, tall ones either, it's the pint-size psycho!"

Damian grit his teeth. He really wasn't _that_ shorter than Grayson or Drake.

Poison Ivy was looking down at him from her throne, a look of mild annoyance on her face as she snapped her finger, and a thick vine started moving over her body, wrapping around her waist, until it lifted her up from her sitting position before slowly and gently descending her down towards the ground.

"You've got a lot of nerve, coming into my domain like this." She said, and her tendril-like hair started billowing underneath her crown as her eyes lit up and all the plants around them began moving menacing, a large number of vines slithering towards Damian. "But I have to wonder if you fully thought this through. That mask of yours won't help you much beyond keeping your head clear as my babies _crush_ your ripcage."

Damian glared right back into her glowing green eyes as her feet made contact with the ground, refusing to let himself be intimidated even as the vines kept creeping towards him from all directions.

He knew this probably wasn't how his father would have gone about doing this, and would more than likely call him reckless if he ever found out about Damian heading straight into enemy territory to confront one of the most dangerous criminals of Gotham City, in terms of raw power at least.

But Damian wasn't his father. He was _better._

"Don't worry, the mask isn't for those." He said, gesturing around him at the vines even as he kept his eyes locked tightly onto Ivy's. "That's what this is for!"

He pushed his arms outwards, causing the cape that had concealed his body up until now to billow outward, revealing the six white bags strung across the red part of his uniform's torso area, connected to eachother with a mess of differently coloured wires, each one adorned with a stylized "R" symbol. Poison Ivy's eyes ceased glowing as she stopped to take in what she was seeing, causing the vines around Damian to pause their forward momentum as well.

Damian took this moment to reveal the black detonator in his hand as well, giving them a good look of the red button on top of it.

"I wouldn't come any closer if I were you." He warned them, and raised his thumb to keep it a few milimeters above the button, ready to trigger it. "I trust you both have some semblance of intelligence enough to understand why. You're both Doctors after all."

"Is... is that a friggin' suicide vest?!" Harley Quinn exclaimed, eyes widening in recognition of the contraption on his chest. "Jeez, what is Batman _teaching_ ya kids? That death by bomb is better than being captured alive? I mean I knew the guy had ta be wacko but I didn't figure him for a terrori-"

"Save it, clown." Damian said, not even sparing the madwoman a glance as he kept his eyes on the biggest threat in the room, who had narrowed her eyes at the bags strapped to him, hesitant as she considered his intentions. "I'll be fine if I push this trigger, but I don't think the same can be said about the plantlife in here once they get a whiff of the chemicals I've got stored in these bags."

Poison Ivy's eyebrows raised in alarm as she understood.

"You don't mean..."

"I've got four pounds of my own specially designed weed killer rigged up and ready to blow, spreading it in every direction when I push this button." Damian said, confirming her fear as she took a step back. "More than enough to reduce everything in here to dust, from the largest tree to the smallest flower, the _second_ they come into contact with this stuff."

"You wouldn't!" Poison Ivy exclaimed, fear etched on her face as she stared at him in disbelief.

"Try me, Isley." Damian retorted, making sure the unwavering seriousness in his voice was clear.

"What the hell is yer problem!?" Harley angrily yelled at him. "Ya come into our home unannounced and uninvited, and immediately start threatening to blow yerself up? At least when B-Man would harrass us, he would do us the decency of giving us a fair fight before resortin' ta dirty tactics like this! And he would ferget his gasmask more often!"

"I'm not here to fight you." Damian said, keeping his voice calm and dignified against Harley's hysterical yelling. "I'm only here for some information I think you'll be able to provide."

"Oh, I'll inform ya of _this!"_ Harley exclaimed, reaching up to the ridiculous basket on her head to pull out a yellow, curved object, pointing it directly at his faced like one would a gun.

Damian hoped his expression of pure condescension would translate enough through his two masks as he looked at her, before speaking up.

"That's a banana, Quinzel."

Harley turned the fruit in her hand, looking at it in apparent amazement as she squeezed it a bit.

"Huh. So it is."

"I trust that if you really were carrying a firearm, you wouldn't be so stupid as to point it at someone who's keeping my precious babies _hostage?"_ Poison Ivy asked her partner with venom dripping from her voice. "Especially considering what happened the _last_ time you recklessly fired a gun in here?"

Harley's face flushed up in a deeper shade than Yuri's had ever managed to reach, and looked down at her bare feet in embarrassment, dropping the banana.

"No ma'am. Sorry ma'am." She said in a fast, miniscule voice.

Poison Ivy kept glaring at her for a few seconds before turning her gaze towards Damian again, scowling at him with a look of pure hatred.

"Well, it seems you've planned this out, birdie." She snarled. "We're utterly helpless and completely at your mercy, you must be so proud of yourself for outsmarting us. Now what do you want from us?"

Damian smirked behind the gas mask.

This was even easier than he'd expected! And to think his father had given him and everyone else in the "family" strict instructions that they were not to approach these socalled Super Villains alone without backup. This was just further proof of Damian being the superior Robin when he could confront someone like Poison Ivy who the Batman had had trouble with for years, just with a decent amount of basic prep.

Despite all of the power they held, most of the rogues here in Gotham had very simple weaknesses to exploit that absolutely everyone could figure out if only they would be a bit more like Damian and use their brain.

Mr. Freeze, despite being nearly untouchable in his suit could be incapacitated very easily by leveraging his wife. Clayface was merely about environmental control. Lure him to somewhere cold enough, and he wouldn't be able to take on dangerous forms. Mad Hatter? Just tell him that "Alice" wouldn't want him doing this, and his psychosis would make him break down crying.

Nearly all of them had some incredibly easy thing about either their personality, physicality or mental condition he could take advantage of, and Ivy was no exception. While she did have nearly total control of all plantlife, capable of making trees grow in a matter of seconds, she was also emotionally attached to them to an absurd degree. If he had wanted to be dramatic about this, simply walking in here with a flamethrower would have done the trick, and Harley was, as always, a non-factor. Just a walking migraine sticking to people more powerful than herself like a leeching parasite, not worth the effort of thinking up countermeasures.

Still holding onto the detonator with a firm grip, he extended an index finger and clicked a few of the buttons built into the gauntlet on his left hand.

"I need you to tell me all you know about _this_ girl." The same moment he said "this" a ghostly blue hologram sprung up in the palm of his hand depicting a girl's head with very long hair mostly kept in a ponytail tied back with a large, white bow, smiling sweetly, as oblivious as she had been when Damian had scanned her to get this 3D model of her face. Because might as well, since he'd already taken her blood, right?

The reaction from Ivy once she laid eyes on the small blue holographic Monika was immediate. She bared her teeth and seemed to hiss a little in anger, with all the plant life around them recoiling slightly as if their master had just gotten an electric shock they'd all shared the pain of.

"I take it by this reaction that you know her, then?" He said, observing her passively.

"Turn that thing off!" Harley snarled at him, hurrying over to stay at her friend's side, throwing her arms around her as if to shield her away from the torture Damian was apparently subjecting her to. "Ever heard a' trigger warnings, bird brain? Ya know how insensitive it is ta some people when ya just show them pics of people who've caused them trauma like that? Ya could have made me and Red _deeply uncomfortable!"_

"My heart is breaking." He responded dryly, and pressed another button on his gauntlet, collapsing the hologram into nothingness, noting her comment about trauma in his head as something to question them about later. "Tell me how you know Monika and-"

"Don't say the M-word, we're _recoverin'!_ " Harley exclaimed.

" _-and,_ I'll consider not showing you her picture again." Damian spoke over her interruption.

"Very well." Poison Ivy said in a low voice, still staring daggers at Damian. "We kidnapped her almost two weeks ago."

"You kidnapped her?" Damian repeated, frowning.

"Yeah, yeah." Harley cut in, sounding annoyed. "We know, 'what a horrible thing ta do! How could ya do something like that to a poor, innocent youth! Ya monsters!' And all that judgy kinda crap ya self-righteous hero types always spew our way. We saw a girl walkin' home from school, thought she looked like her family got cash, and we wanted ta make a quick buck, boo-frickety-hoo. In case ya hadn't noticed, we're Supah Villains! We do bad things, big shock!"

"How come I never heard of this?" Damian asked, ignoring Harley. He hadn't expected this response, since he thought he would have heard about a hostage situation like that if it had been reported.

"It didn't exactly go as planned." Poison Ivy explained. "Due to unforeseen complications with her family, we were unable to call for a ransom, and we both decided to cut our losses and get rid of her, permanently. Overall, kidnapping her was one of the most regrettable decisions of my entire life."

"Amen." Harley Quinn agreed, nodding solemnly.

Damian stared at them both in disbelief at hearing her recounting of the events, especially the "getting rid of her" part. He knew that both of them could generously be described as mentally unstaple mass murderers, but he would have thought a thing like this would have been below even them.

"You were going to _kill_ a highschooler?"

"Hell-o!" Harley exclaimed, throwing her arms out while staring at Damian, with an expression on her face as if he was struggling to understand something exceedingly simple and straightforward they were trying to tell him. " Did ya even listen ta me?! Supah Villains! Bad deeds! Right here!"

Damian pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation. Why had he expected anything else from these two?

"Whatever." He said, deciding to move on. "Her blood results said that she's got traces of your immunity serum in her blood, Isley. Why would you give a random school girl whom you were going to kill, something I thought you only provided your most trusted allies with?"

"Yeah, I'd like to know that too, actually!" Harley said, angrily placing her hands on her hips as she turned to glare at the other villainess, who released an impatient groan before replying.

"Harley, you _know_ I wasn't in my right mind when I gave her that." She said, with an air over her voice that suggested she'd gone through this multiple times already. "She'd done that thing that made me stop you from killing her, and all that other stuff I wrongfully said to you afterwards, remember?"

"Oh, I know." Harley said, and her face split into a wide smile again. "I just wanted ta hear ya admit ta bein' wrong back then again. That really makes the pain of that period easier."

"Come here, you." Poison Ivy said, her face softening up into a smile of her own as she pulled Harley close to kiss her softly on her forehead. "I'm so lucky to have found someone like you who refused to give up on me even when I tried to kill you."

Harley giggled.

"I'm just glad that bitch's effect wasn't permanent. God, can ya imagine?"

Damian looked at the two women laughing as they stared longingly into each other's eyes, wondering if they had forgotten he was even there. He decided to remind them again by clearing his throat, before speaking up.

"What effect? What made you stop from killing her? Elaborate, now."

The smile vanished from Poison Ivy's face as she looked down at him again in annoyance.

But then, the corners of her mouth creeped upwards, as her eyes started to glow yet again.

"You know, I think I'm done taking orders from you."

The plants around the clearing started moving again, the vines slithering ever onwards towards him, way too close for comfort.

He glared into her empty green eyes, frowning.

"Have you already forgotten what I told you? Call them back, or this garden of yours is gonna go from green to gray very, _very_ fast."

The vines didn't stop, and instead of showing any signs of fear, Poison Ivy's smile actually grew wider. He raised an eyebrow. It wasn't like her to knowingly endanger her precious plants like this. Did she think he was bluffing?

"Oh, I don't think you're going to do that, little bird." She said, and her voice echoed throughout the warehouse, sounding like it was coming from all around them as it was magnified to many times her normal volume.

 _"-TT-"_ He scoffed, glancing around at the plants that had reached close enough to make contact with his boots now, and raised the detonator. He was getting sick of people not taking him seriously because of his age and his height, which was likely to be what she was referring to with that "little bird" comment. Perhaps it was time to finally teach these women what would happen if they messed with _this_ Robin.

"Don't say I didn't warn you, Isley." He said, and pushed his thumb down hard on the detonator.

Nothing happened.

Confused, he turned the detonator around in his hand, inspecting it as he pressed the button again and again, still with no results. He could feel the vines starting to crawl up his legs now, and his heart pace quickened. This was impossible, he'd designed this plan himself! How could it possibly fail?

"Oh no!" Harley exclaimed, throwing her hands up to her cheeks, mockingly pretending to be aghast at the situation. "It looks like the Boy Blunder is havin' performance issues! Don't worry, it's perfectly natural, and happens ta the best of us!"

In an act of frustration, Damian threw the useless detonator to the ground, cursing inwardly as the vines kept advancing up his body. He angrily glared at Poison Ivy, who was still staring at him with her bright green, glowing eyes, smiling smugly.

"How?!" He barked at her.

"You should have paid more attention to your surroundings." She said, the triumphant tone ringing clear all throughout the room. "While we were chit-chatting, I spent my time sending miniscule vines up through the floor where you stand to entangle themselves in the wiring of your bomb in order to block the signal to your detonator."

He looked down his body, and sure enough, the wires connecting the white bags on his torso looked a whole lot greener and alive than they did before, as they wriggled all around the bags like tiny worms.

"People always think about the big things when it comes to me." Ivy gloated. "Massive trees, Venus Fly Traps big enough to swallow a man whole, turning cities into jungles. But what they don't realize is the deadliest things comes in small packages. A drop of poison in a drink. A seed sprouting in your stomach. Or a kiss, from me. Would you like to try that? I guarantee, the experience will take your _breath_ away!"

Damian refused to let himself be intimidated by her theatrics, as he quickly reached into a compartment of his utility belt, closing his fingers around the sharp edge of a batarang. The plan had gone a little awry, but there was still a chance he could salvage it, by simply cutting open the bags and release the chemicals manually. The spread wouldn't be as effective, but he could at least make the plants ensnaring him wilt on the spot, giving him time to think up another plan.

Raising the batarang, he plunged it towards one of the bags and-

"Oh, I think not." Ivy said casually, and two vines shot through the air with great speed to wrap themselves around each of his arms, pulling them harshly to his sides, in a cross-like position. He struggled a bit, but quickly realized they were both too strong to fight against.

"You know, I think you've had some poor manners for a houseguest, wearing a mask like that in our home." Ivy said silkily, as another vine shot up from the floor, and slowly slithered forwards like a snake approaching its prey, until it was right in front of Damian's face. "It's insulting, frankly, to insinuate that we're carrying some infectuous disease. I'll let you keep the one around your eyes, since I know you and your kind are shy, but I don't think you have any need for the other."

The vine shot through the air faster than Damian's eyes could follow, right towards his face, making him flinch despite himself. He felt it collide hard against the transparent gasmask, penetrating its shell like a nail gun hitting an egg, destroying it. Then, it coiled around the edge, pulling the protective gear right off his face, and letting it fall to the ground.

Damian tried to hold his breath, until one of the vines ensnaring him tightened around his chest, making him gasp in pain, forcing him to breathe in the floral scent hanging all around the air in here.

"See? Doesn't that feel so much better?" He heard Poison Ivy's voice, sounding muffled and far away as a fog seemed to settle inside his head, making it hard to see, or think straight. His vision blurred, making it hard to focus on the feminine figure slowly walking towards him, swaying her hips seductively with every step. "Just breathe in the delicious scent of Mother Nature herself..."

Had Pamela always looked so... beautiful? He stared at the woman, noticing for the first time how soft her green skin looked, how flowing that crimson hair was, and felt a strong desire to... to touch it, wondering how it would feel between his fingers. He was almost certain it would be softer than even the finest velvet, surely it would. He'd never felt this way about another human before, which was fitting since Pamela hardly counted as a mere human. She was a _Goddess!_

How could he have ever planned on hurting her babies? Even the thought of the upset expression tainting that pristine face right in front of him if his plan had worked seemed to cut right through his heart. Why was she considered bad again? There was no way someone as pretty as her could be be evil...

"Aw man, yer' so _dead!_ " The high-pitched gleeful voice of Harley Quinn cut through the fog, followed by an even louder laughter that hit him in the head like a splash of water, clearing his mind a good amount.

He glared into Poison Ivy's intense eyes, their green coloration reminding him of the girl at school he'd come here to investigate in the first place, cursing how easily this villainess had managed to distract him from his mission with her pheromones. He had to concentrate his willpower on avoiding falling into the slippery slope of the plant lady's beauty, a good way to do this being focusing on how badly he'd messed up this excursion, and how his father would react if he could see him now.

And then another realization hit him, making him groan internally.

_God, I'm never going to hear the end of this from her, am I? She is going to make sure I never live this down._

Shaking his head in an attempt to clear his dull head some more, he spoke up in an attempt to at least TRY to get some more information out of this disastrous mission.

"Before you kill me," He said, finding it difficult to talk as his jaw felt heavy, as though he was underwater or asleep. "Just tell me the deal with Monika."

Poison Ivy merely smirked at him, no mercy to be detected in her eyes.

"Oh my, you've got quite the mind, being able to fight back my influence like that. Not that it'll do you any good, of course."

Harley's face popped into his vision, a maniacal smile plastered across her face as she looked on in great anticipation to see how her partner was going to finish him off.

"All you need to know about that girl is that she's a freak, and we want nothing to do with her. Now," Poison Ivy said, as she grabbed hold of his hood, pulling it back over his head, revealing his black hair. Then, she placed her hands on either side of his face and licked her lips, which Damian knew all too well were loaded up with a poison known for its unfailing lethality. "Any last words before your good night kiss?"

"Just one." Damian said, preparing himself for the massive hit his pride was about to take, before taking a deep breath, and yelling as loud as he could.

"NOW!"

There was a loud crash from above, as the explosives they'd planted an hour before at the roof of the warehouse went off. The two women recoiled away from Damian at the sudden noise, shielding their heads from the sudden downpour of dust and debris, making them miss the dark figure descending from the newly made hole in the roof as well, landing in the middle of the clearing.

"What the heck?!" Harley screamed in shock, squinting at the cloud of dust still settling in the room, shielding the figure from view.

"What is the meaning of this?" Poison Ivy demanded to know in a furious voice, baring her teeth at Damian, not having noticed the fourth person in the room either.

"Interrupt... something?"

Harley and Ivy's heads snapped towards the unknown female voice coming from the dustcloud, looking on with puzzled expressions, before the figure finally stepped forward into view, revealing herself.

Despite not being particularly tall or large, not even reaching Poison Ivy's height, she had a way of moving, completely without hesitation or fear of any kind, making her appearance grand and imposing in her own way, helped along by her costume.

She was dressed in an entirely black, skintight outfit, the thin material hugging the curves of her body, showing off the springy muscles in her slender body. Unlike Batman and the rest of the Robins, Damian included, there was no special protection integrated into her uniform, having been sacrificed in favor of better movement, in theory making her completely vulnerable to knives and bullets- if anyone would ever manage to hit her, that was.

The only parts of her costume that wasn't pitch black, including the long, flowing cape trailing behind her as she moved forwards, were the faint yellow outline of a stylized bat across her chest area, and the compact utility belt of the same colour clasped across her hips, looking about two sizes too big for her due to her body's build.

Her head was covered by the cowl typically associated with the "bat" members of his father's family, complete with the long, pointy ears jutting up from the sides of her head like horns, but this cowl differentiated itself from the others, evidenced by the blank, black spots stitched over the mouth and eyeholes, hiding her face and expression from view entirely, although Damian thought if he knew her right, she was probably smirking smugly behind her mask as she took in the scene of his precarious situation, helplessly tied up by vines, while the two villains stared at her in awe, lost for words.

Cassandra Cain, the second Batgirl, always did like to make an entrance.

Harley Quinn was the first one to break the silence, cowering behind Poison Ivy in exaggerated fear, as she pointed a shaking finger at the new arriver.

"Gah! A gimp! Ivy, kill it!"

The black clad woman tilted her head vaguely to the side, this being the only way for her to express confusion with the mask she wore.

"Am not... gimp. I am... Batgirl." She said slowly and hesitatingly, as if chewing her words over carefully before speaking them aloud, voice slightly muffled behind the mask. Damian knew her language skills had improved a lot from a few years ago where for all intents and purposes she'd been a mute. He knew that she _could_ speak in whole sentences if she absolutely had to, but she preferred talking like this when in costume, since she'd been told that she actually appeared scarier when using her broken dialect.

"Yeaaah, nah. I don't think so." Harley responded, her initial fear of Cassandra's sudden arrival fading away as she inspected her with a critical eye. "Batgirl's a hot redhead, not a model for BDSM. And trust me, I know a little bit about both of those, right Red?"

She smirked, and shot Poison Ivy a sideways wink. The plant lady didn't seem amused.

"Harley, quit messing around." She said, keeping her green eyes trained on Cassandra, clearly recognizing the threat she presented. "I've heard about this one before, and she-"

"Say, what colour is yer hair under that thing anyway? Assumin' ya even have hair." Harley spoke over Poison Ivy, not listening to her warning.

"Black." Cassandra replied pleasantly.

"Ah, typical." Harley sighed, raising a palm to her face. "As if we didn't have enough of ya guys runnin' around. This is just like that new Witcher show where they made that other cute redhead inta another boring black haired broad. Thanks Hollywood, ya ruined Batgirl! Gingers need representation too, y'know!"

"Harley, shut up!" Poison Ivy hissed. "If what I've heard is true, this Batgirl is leagues beyond what the original was capable of, maybe even surpassing Batman himself. We _have_ to take her seriously!"

"She doesn't look like much." Harley said, sounding unconvinced. "Lookit her, she's a kid! Barely even taller than the bird boy, what could she possibly do ta one of the deadliest women in the world? Oh, and you too I suppose, Pammie."

Cassandra, seeming to have grown bored of their bickering turned her head towards Damian, tilting her head to the side once more.

"You lost... bet." She said, and Damian could _hear_ the punchable smirk in her voice. "Said... could beat them... without help. You... couldn't."

"Do we have to do this right now?" Damian asked, his annoyance rising. He really wished he could get free from this ridiculous position he was forced into by the vines. "Could you _not_ rub it in while the villains are listening?"

"Want to... hear you say it." Cassandra ignored him, crossing her arms. "Admit you... needed me."

 _She's been spending way too much time with Stephanie._ He thought, this being the most likely explanation for her increasingly sassy retorts.

At that moment, Poison Ivy let loose a primal scream, as she collapsed to her knees, connecting her hands with the floor of the warehouse, her eyes glowing brighter than ever and her hair billowing around her face as if caught in an invisible tornado. The ground started rumbling for one second, before all hell broke loose.

Plants started bursting through the floor, massive, coiling vines of all shapes, sizes and colours, some even adorned with thorns large and sharp enough to puncture a man's skull. The forest around them seemed to be shaking madly before even more vines burst forward from the far depths of vegetation, joining their kin still breaching through every available inch of the floorboard.

And every single one of the hundreds of vines were closing in on Batgirl at a breakneck speed. It seemed as if Poison Ivy had decided to strike with the full extent of her powers while Cassandra had been seemingly distracted, gloating at Damian.

Unfortunately for her, as she would now come to realize, Cassandra Cain was _never_ distracted.

Batgirl reacted immediately, leaping away from the spot she'd been standing just moments before another vine penetrated that point as well. It became hard for even Damian to follow her movements as she ducked and weaved through the descending greenery, never staying in one spot long enough for the vines to even touch her, looking like a black blur more than anything else as she made her way over to Ivy.

Damian supposed that certain members of The Titans like Kid Flash and even Jon _had_ to be faster than her, technically- she _was_ just a human after all- but the way she used her speed as efficiently as possible while dodging through the entire forest of obstacles coming her way without getting hit even once, somehow made her _seem_ faster than the two Speedsters.

This was part of the reason why having to be saved by her hurt his pride as much as it did. Even though he knew she had only reached this level of physical perfection by training from birth rougher and more intense than even he had, and the fact that it had come at the expense of her ability to read, write and even speak in the beginning, she just made everything look so _easy!_

"How is she so fast, Red?!" Harley yelled, in an effort to be heard over the creaking and crashing of the vines chasing Cassandra. Her voice had a nervous twinge to it, as Batgirl advanced ever closer towards them, zig-zagging in between the descending forest.

"She can't keep this up!" Poison Ivy yelled back, her teeth gritted in strained effort as she exerted more and more of her power. "No mere human can hope to defeat nature itsel-"

Poison Ivy was cut off when Cain used a vine breaking through the floor to boost herself up in the air, where she grabbed hold of another vine above her, and, using the momentum she'd just gained, rotated her body around the vine before releasing her grip, launching herself across the room to brutally land a kick directly in Ivy's face, instantly knocking her out cold.

Damian felt a a huge twinge of sympathy towards the plant lady, even as the vines ensnaring him began slackening their grip as they no longer had anyone conscious controlling them, and the rest of the room's plantlife started slowly descending to the torn up floor as well. Was Ivy okay? He hoped Cassandra hadn't kicked her two hard. She could have been seriously hurt, and for what? Unlike the other lunatics in Gotham, all the things she did came from a place of good intentions. She just wanted to save the planet, and who could fault her for that? Maybe this whole encounter had been one big misundersta-

Damian shook his head to clear his thoughts again, rubbing his wrists to start his blood circulation again after having been tied up.

_Stupid pheromones._

Batgirl stood over Ivy's body lying unmoving on the ground, cracking her knuckles casually as if she'd just completed a light workout. She turned her masked head towards him again.

"Admit it!" She called after him, continuing their conversation from before as if there hadn't just been a major interruption at all.

Damian was tempted to merely respond with one of his most condescending _"-TT-'s"_ to date, when Harley Quinn began speaking up, reminding them all of her presence as she was crouched next to Poison Ivy, tears streaming down her face as she glared at them both with a look of deepest loathing.

"Alright. Ya guys got what ya came here for. Ya physically bullied, assaulted and terrorized two poor, helpless women just tryin' ta make a livin' in a big city. Yer parents must be so proud of ya. Now scram." She said, in a low, hateful voice. "We're gonna need some time ta recover after this mess ya caused."

 _Poison Ivy? Helpless?_ Damian knew Quinzel was delusional, but to go that far?

He walked over to join Cassandra's side, stepping over the now immobile vines strewn about all over.

"You're both going to Arkham, Quinzel." He said, crossing his arms. "And hopefully they'll manage to keep you there longer this time."

"What?!" Harley shouted, voice full of fury and outrage. "It wasn't enough for ya to ruin Date Night for us by exertin' yer vigilante brutality on us? Now ya gotta take us ta prison, too? We didn't even do anything this time before ya just burst in and started trampling our rights!"

"Harley, you're a wanted criminal with a body count of over 50 people, and that's not even counting the murders you were only an accomplice to." Damian said, sighing. They had this conversation every time she was caught, as she never really seemed to fathom the concept of there being consequences for her actions. He knew how she would reply next.

"I meant recently! That was back in my Mistah J days, it's hardly fair ta bring that up when we're no longer together! How am I s'posed ta show I've changed if ya keep locking me up in the nuthouse?" She countered, confirming his guess.

Even if that was how the Law worked, she'd used that "no longer with Joker" excuse a few too many times for him to even remotely believe her.

"You tried to kill an innocent girl just a little over a week ago." He said. "Not to mention us, a few moments ago."

"Emphasis on 'tried!' And if ya saw how annoyin' she was bein', I bet ya would have done the same too!" Harley countered, somehow thinking she was making a good case for herself.

"You need help, Quinzel." Damian said, glancing away from her in order to bend down and cuff Poison Ivy's hands before she woke up. He knew they wouldn't do much against her plant control, but he still felt like his mind would be more at ease with her hands secured. "But unfortunately I know better than to expect you'll get it in Arkham this time around, your track record being what it is."

"I will not stand fer this kinda racial profiling!" Harley yelled, pulling another banana from the basket wobbling madly around her head as she got to her feet. Once again, she pointed the end of the fruit at Damian. "It's because I'm _blonde,_ isn't it?!"

Damian hardly even spared her a second glance.

"Quinzel, that's _still_ a banan-"

A rough push to his side made him collapse to the floor the same second as a loud bang echoed all throughout the warehouse. Damian looked up, dazed to see Batgirl standing over him, her body coiled and ready to strike as Harley stood across from her, still holding the banana which was now smoking lightly from the tip, the peel at the front having been ripped to shreds, revealing the very real gun underneath.

"No!" Harley screamed, firing the gun again at point blank range, this time at Cassandra, who effortlessly dodged the bullet.

"Why! Won't! Ya! Just! Die! Die! Diiie! " Harley yelled each word in tune with her firing the gun, the bullets harmlessly whizzing past the rapidly moving Cassandra, and instead hitting the various trees and bushes in the warehouse until at last nothing but empty clicks could be heard as Harley uselessly kept pulling the trigger.

"This ain't possible. No one can move that fast." Harley mumbled in disbelief, still reaching her arms towards Cassandra even as the masked girl took the empty gun away from her. "How did ya even _do_ that?!"

"Told... you. I'm Batgirl." Cassandra responded, and confiscated the fruit basket on her head in case she had any more hidden weapons stored in it. Then, she turned towards Damian, still laying on the floor, who for once found himself completely speechless at having been unable to predict a move from Harley Quinn of all people. She bent down slightly, and offered him a gloved hand. "Saved you... twice now. Getting... rusty?"

 _"-TT-"_ He found his voice again as the disbelief turned to anger at her childish taunt, and got to his feet, ignoring Cassandra's outstretched hand.

_DEFINITELY spent too much time with Stephanie._

"I'm completely screwed now, aren't I?" Harley asked, sounding defeated.

"Yes." Cassandra replied.

"Alrighty. Any chance ya can make sure I get a cell far away from _her?_ " She asked, shooting a cautious look at the still unconscious Poison Ivy. "I don't think she'll be very happy with me once she finds out I shot her plants. Again."


	11. Sins of the Father Pt C

Damian tilted his head to glance upwards in mild bemusement. The rain was wearing off.

If he believed in the ludicrous idea that some higher entity was controlling the weather, and was arrogant enough to think that entity was changing it solely based on him and his closest allies, he'd be taking note of the irony it seemed to be employing.

Making it cloudy and rainy throughout the entire day when a certain half-alien and his friend could use the cheering effects of the sun more than ever, and then making it stop so late in the day that you'd at most only get an hour with the clear sky before the sun set and it turned to night time, certainly seemed like someone's idea of a joke.

It was a good thing then that he didn't care about something as insignificant as the weather either way, and he turned his head back down again as he continued following the sidewalk he was currently traversing.

It was nice to get some air after that excursion to the over-sized greenhouse. He always got nauseated when he inhaled Isley's fumes, as he felt his mind that he took extra care to keep as sharp as possible get noticably dull whenever he faced the plant-based villainess. He'd thought the mask would have been enough to avoid that, but clearly that just hadn't been in his cards.

Normally he'd clear his head by going on patrol, but he was all too aware that tonight was the night of the weekly team-up session between Luke Fox and Jean-Paul Valley, in which they would traverse the rooftops of Gotham and keep the city safe while "hanging out" and "catching up" like the "bros they were," as they would put it. With the two of them keeping watch, Damian was sure that tonight would be even less eventful than the rest of this week had been, and he had no strong desire to be the third wheel between Azrael and Batwing, much less get caught up in one of their neverending irritating arguments of Faith versus Technology.

Not to mention, after the humiliation he had suffered at that warehouse with Harley, Ivy and Cassandra, he was feeling less than charitable towards any further activities tonight as Robin, and was in no rush to put the costume back on for the rest of the day at the very least.

Batgirl had volunteered to stay behind to guard Harley and Ivy as the police arrived to transport them back to Arkham. It was rare for her to be a part of supervillain takedown maneuvers like this, and she was excited to finally get an opportunity to talk to the members of the GCPD she'd heard so much about from his father and the others.

Damian found himself hoping that Harvey Bullock would be the Detective to show up at the scene, just for the chaos that would ensue alone. Getting the cop who harbored a strong dislike for all costumed vigilantes and wasn't afraid to let his opinions be heard for her first encounter with the law enforcement would be just what she deserved after those comments she'd fired at him, and Bullock in turn would be driven mad by how difficult someone like Cassandra could be to talk with. The mental image of their conversation alone was enough to make Damian smirk slightly to himself.

He quickly sobered up though, putting his face into a more neutral expression as he continued along Gotham sidewalk towards Natsuki's house.

It hadn't been much he'd been able to get out of his "interrogation," but from the little he'd been able to gather from Harley and Ivy's comments, it had seemed like the pink-haired girl had been at least partially correct; something unusual was definitely going on with Monika, and it wasn't just the Serum in her blood. Something she'd done had made Poison Ivy inject her, and that same something had helped her survive and even escape from the two, which was just a little beyond what a seemingly regular school girl should have been able to accomplish, even with the Serum.

That was why when he'd arrived back at the Manor to change out of his uniform and into civilian clothes, he'd put Monika's blood sample (as well as Yuri, Natsuki and Sayori's- can't be too careful!) into a much more thorough scanner, which would look through every single aspect of her, down to the last atom of her DNA. If there was something worth looking more into about her, the machine would find it. The only downside to this machine was that it would take almost a full day before being able to provide him with results, which was... infuriatingly slow, to say the least.

Even though he wanted nothing more than to pay Monika herself a visit as Robin to _make_ her talk, he knew that would be a foolish, not to mention reckless thing to do while she remained an unknown. Oh, he had his theories and well educated guesses as to why, how and what was up with her, which certainly _seemed_ likely enough, but they were just that- speculation. He'd gone into the warehouse knowing full well the individuals inside and what they could do, and the situation had still turned out in a way he didn't expect. There was no way he could confront Monika without more information.

Which was why he was going to Natsuki now to report his findings. Normally he'd much rather call up Jon, as he could be more honest and transparent with him about _how_ he'd discovered what he had, but he knew the half-alien was in a very emotionally vulnerable state right now, and didn't need to be interrupted while his mind was on Sayori. And if Damian implied like Natsuki had that Monika might have been the one responsible for Sayori's predicament, well... Jon wasn't ready to hear that so soon. Tomorrow.

Damian knew it was limited how much of this he would be able to tell Natsuki, all the stuff about the Serum for instance being off the table, but he could still inform her about how he'd hacked into her medical records and discovered her condition, as that didn't seem _too_ out of line with what a person in his age group should be able to do. And he just needed to let _someone_ know about the trouble he'd gone through to look into this case, preferably someone who actually knew about the people in the Club so they could be properly impressed with him. And since Jon wasn't an option at least for today, and the fact that he would much rather team up with Jason Todd of all people than ever setting foot in Yuri's house again, Natsuki was the only one remaining.

At last he made it to the address he'd acquired from the Batcomputer, and wasted no further time in briskly walking up the steps leading to her front door, and confidently knocked three times.

"Natsuki!" A male voice bellowed from inside, muffled by the closed door, but still very much audible. "Get the door!"

"Yes, Dad!" A more familiar, highpitched voice called back, which Damian instantly recognized as the loudmouthed pink-haired girl from the Club. It was unusual to hear her sound this obediant to whom he guessed had to be her father, knowing what her behaviour was like at school.

He heard the muffled, hurried steps getting closer from behind the door, before the lock clicked, and the door opened to reveal Natsuki, still with the red hourglass-shaped hairpin and ribbons littering her pink hair, but instead of a school uniform, she was clad in a plain white t-shirt with pink highlights around the sleeves and the collar, and a tiny, similarly coloured cat head to the top left of her chest. Below the shirt was an also pink, frilly skirt which covered the top half of her legs.

Simply put, her outfit looked very, _very_ "girly."

"Hi there, how can I help y-" She began, but cut herself off once she properly laid her eyes on Damian, and recognized who he was. Her whole body seemed to freeze on the spot, her mouth hanging half-open in dull silence as her eyes widened, seemingly taking their time to process what they were seeing.

A few seconds went by, and Damian raised a questioning eyebrow at this odd display before he cut right to the chase, not wanting to spend time on useless pleasantries.

"I have some information regarding Moni-"

"What are YOU doing here!?" Natsuki interrupted him, whispering intensely at him, having broken out of her shocked trance when he'd started speaking. Her eyes were sending him an uninterrupted, angry glare, before she quickly turned her head to glance over her shoulder.

Damian frowned. He'd just been about to tell her of his purpose here before she'd rudely interrupted him.

"Like I just tried to tell you, I have been able to gather new intel on the Monika case, like you reques-"

"How did you find where I live?" She turned her head back to glare at him once more, interrupting him again. "Did _Jon_ tell you? I thought I could trust him!"

Damian crossed his arms. As if he needed Jon to find a house. He wasn't sure if he should be more insulted by that notion, or the fact that she hadn't let him finish speaking twice in a row now.

"So, do you still want to know the answer to your first question, or should I tell you how I found this pla-"

"Natsuki!" Her father shouted again from somewhere inside the house, interrupting Damian for the third time. "Who's at the door?!"

Natsuki flinched at the voice, and seemed to cower a bit, turning her head to look over her shoulder again.

"N- nobody, Dad!" She called back, trying to force an air of calmness into her voice like she had back in the closet when confronted by Yuri, but nowhere near as succesfully. "It- it was a prank call! Some loser just knocked and ran off!"

She snapped her head back, glaring at Damian with a deeper hatred than he'd ever seen in her pink eyes before. Her face was flushing up, growing redder by the second.

"You can't be here. You need to leave." She whispered furiously at Damian, a crystal clear finality in her hushed voice that this wasn't up for debate. "Now."

Damian met her eyes unflinchingly. He'd had plenty of practice with this tone of voice before, this being his father's preferred way to speak to him (not to mention everyone else), and as such, he had plenty of training with disobeying it.

_"You_ told me to inform you if I discovered something about Monika that might explain some of the things happening at the Club." He said, finally allowed to speak up without interruptions. "And now that I am trying to do just that, your response is to send me away?"

"Oh my God, read the room, you idiot!" Natsuki whispered, looking at him in frustration as her hands slid up to her hair, pulling it back. She appeared to be incredibly stressed for some reason. "I meant tell me at _school!_ Don't just show up at my doorstep in the evening like some psychopath!"

"Why does it matter when or where I tell you?" Damian asked, genuinely confused. Was this another "girl" thing he didn't understand?

There was definitely something different about the girl's behaviour, he noted. She still resorted to the usual namecalling and insulting him like at the Club, but there was no trace of the glee and enjoyment to be found in her voice right now. On the contrary, she seemed to be using the bratty behaviour in order to hide another emotion from him. Like... fear.

"No, no, no, this can't be happening!" Natsuki muttered to herself, and Damian furrowed his eyebrows when he saw tears actually starting to emerge from the corners of her eyes. "Please, leave. Leave, before _he_ sees you!"

"What's going on her-" He started, but was interrupted by the thundering footsteps from behind Natsuki, making her jump as they came closer at a rapid rate.

Natsuki tried one last, desperate attempt to get Damian away by pushing at his chest as hard as she could, which didn't really amount to much, and barely made Damian move an inch as he stood his ground. Her weird behaviour had gained his attention now, and there was no way he was going to leave before he got some answers.

"What the hell is going on?!" The male voice exclaimed aggresively, as a strong force flung the door all the way open, making Natsuki jump back, releasing a small, shocked outcry.

Damian tilted his head back to inspect the new arrival in the doorway.

The man was burly built, towering above Damian and Natsuki both. He was dressed in a pair of loose-fitting black sweat pants, and a plain, white sleeveless shirt, jutted outwards from the very sizable belly it was trying to contain. There were a few wet stains at the front of it, which Damian thought he could guess the origin of, based on the open, half-empty beer bottle held in his hand.

The man had long, shoulder length hair, so matted and covered in grease that the pink coloration had faded away to a very weak, dull hue, so unlike the eyecatching brightness of his daughter's hair. In fact, there didn't seem to be much of anything about this man's appearance that Natsuki shared.

His pudgy face was littered with day-old beard stubble, spread throughout the lower half of his face, failing to cover, and instead accentuating his doublechin. Damian looked higher, and saw the man's unfocused eyes narrowing in clear anger at him.

All in all, if he had to sum up his description of Natsuki's father in one word, the first that came to mind would be "pathetic." Although "gross" would be a strong second contender. It was very hard for Damian to feel any amount of intimidation from this man.

And yet Natsuki didn't seem to have any trouble with that at all, standing by the side in the doorway, looking in turn at Damian, then her father, then back again, her eyes wide, panicked and helpless.

"Natsuki." The man said in a low voice. "Who... is that?"

He gestured at Damian standing on the doormat, who decided to answer his question at the same time as Natsuki did.

"He's no one, Dad."

"I attend the same school as your daughter."

Damian's clear, confident voice easily trumped Natsuki's miniscule muttering, making it obvious which one of them was telling the truth. Natsuki seemed to realize that as well, as her whole body seemed to slump, and she closed her eyes, leaning up against the wall as though all life had left her body.

"You invited a _boy_ over to _my_ house?!" The man snarled, causing Natsuki to open her eyes again, looking up at her father with a horrified expression on her face.

"No, Dad, I swear I didn't, I don't know why he's com-"

"Is that why so many of my baking supplies have gone missing while I was away? Have you and this kid been snuggling it up in here through the whole week?"

"Dad, please, no-"

"Stop lying to me!" Her dad yelled.

"I can assure you, I've never stepped foot in this house previously." Damian added helpfully, wanting to clear up this confusion so they could move on from this tiring topic. "That was my colleague, Jonathan Kent, who assisted her in baking cupcakes yesterday. I'm uncertain as to whether or not they 'snuggled it up,' as you so put it, however."

For some reason, his words seemed to have the opposite effect on them as both froze up, taking in what he'd just said in stunned silence. Her father seemed to be going through the mental gymnastics in his head of deciphering what the words meant, whereas Natsuki looked as if she wanted nothing more in this world right now than to strangle Damian right there on the spot.

Truly, a peculiar family dynamic.

"You invited more than one boy?!" Her father bellowed at last, finally coming to a conclusion.

"No." Natsuki's voice was little more than a whisper, and a single tear made its way down her cheek as she kept up her stare at Damian, her glistening eyes full of... blame? For him?

He tilted his head to the side, confused. What had he done _this_ time?

"You." Natsuki's dad growled, pointing a fat finger right in Damian's face, gaining his attention. "Beat it, kid. Never come back here again. I gotta talk to my daughter."

His arm shot to his side, grabbing hold of Natsuki's arm in a much rougher way than what seemed necessary, dragging her closer, as if to prevent her from escaping. At the moment of contact, a small gasp escaped Natsuki's lips.

Damian narrowed his eyes, looking directly up into the man's ratlike face, meeting his eyes which seemed completely devoid of mercy.

"Do you hear me?!" He said, in a voice growing increasingly louder. "I don't want you coming anywhere near my daughter again. You are not to touch, or talk to her. Don't even look at her, or else. Do you understand?!"

Damian kept up his defiant stare, before nodding slowly, continuing looking into the man's eyes.

"Yes, _Sir._ I understand everything now." Damian said, making sure to put a mocking emphasis on the "Sir." He kept his eyes trained on the man with the most warning look he could muster, right up until the moment the front door was slammed in his face.

Damian didn't move his body. Not even an inch. Instead, he shut his eyes, closing his mind off to any and all outside distractions, and listened.

He couldn't do it as well as Jon, given the natural limitations of his human physiology, but he didn't need to. If his estimation of this man was correct, he would easily be able to hear what happened next.

_"Daddy... please!"_ He heard Natsuki's muffled voice, breaking up into sobs. _"I swear, it's not what it looked lik-"_

_"Shut up!"_ Her dad said harshly, and a highpitched exclamation could be heard. Damian thought he could picture the man roughly dragging the girl along by her arm, as if she was a dog.

Damian clenched his fist.

_Come on. Give me an excuse._ He thought bitterly, his previous goal of telling Natsuki about Monika completely forgotten.

_"Dad, please. I- I can explain. You... you don't have t- to do tha-"_

_"I thought I told you to BE QUIET!"_

And then, the unmistakable sound of a dull impact, a sound Damian had heard all too often in costume as Robin, followed immediately by a loud, strangled yelp of pain from Natsuki.

Damian opened his eyes again, feeling the blood rush to his head, clouding his thought process. He'd been expecting this, but hearing it confirmed didn't make him any less angry. Quite the contrary.

He had his excuse now.

Quickly locating the weakest point on the wooden door in front of him, he raised his leg and kicked with a combination of tactical precision and pure strength, causing the door to fly off its hinges and crash against the wall on the inside of the building. He wasted no further time in stepping inside, and taking in the scene that met him.

Natsuki was lying on the floor, at the end of the long, narrow hallway, clutching her side with her hand, clearly in pain as her father stood over her, slightly bent over. He'd ditched the half-finished beer bottle in his hand, having placed it on the floor in favor of a worn-out, black leather belt, half of it wrapped around his arm and the other half dangling menacingly with a big, metallic buckle hanging by the end of it.

Upon further inspection, Damian noticed that Natsuki's shirt was rolled up a bit, exposing her pale skin as well as several black and blue marks, in various stages of healing, clearly showing that this wasn't the first time.

Damian's heart started beating faster.

Both father and daughter had turned their heads in the direction of the deafening sound of Damian kicking in the door. Natsuki's eyes were wide with fear, tears streaming down her face, and her father's narrowed in silent fury. Both of them seemed lost for words in surprise of Damian's forceful intrusion into their home.

Natsuki's dad was the first to find his voice again.

"How _dare_ you break in here?! This is private property, you brat!"

Then, Natsuki regained the same ability, shrieking as loud as she could, while pulling her shirt down again to hide her bruises.

"Damian, what the hell are you doing?! Run! Go away!"

Damian ignored both of them as he took another step forward refusing to look away from the despicable excuse for a man in front of him.

"Do you like beating defenseless little girls?" He spoke up quietly, in a voice of forced calm. "Does that make you feel powerful?"

Natsuki's father narrowed his own beady eyes at Damian.

"Last warning, kid. This is your final chance to get out while you still can."

"Right back at you, old man." Damian retorted.

The man's eye twitched in anger and he straightened up to face Damian in all his height. In doing so, he turned away from Natsuki who took this chance to scurry over to a corner of the hallway, looking nothing short of terrified. The man grabbed hold of the end of the dangling belt with his other hand, stretching it in what he evidently thought to be a threatening manner.

"I won't hold back from giving a punk like you the beating you deserve just because you're young, you know." He growled at Damian.

"Clearly." Damian replied dryly, and gestured over to the corner where Natsuki was now sitting in a fetal position, trying to make herself even smaller than she already was, shaking all over in sheer terror of the scene unfolding before her. "It's very evident that small details like that aren't an issue for someone like you."

Crying out in anger, the man lunged outwards with the belt, right towards Damian. It was a ridiculously telegraphed move, and Damian didn't need to do anything besides taking a quick step backwards to avoid getting hit by the buckle. With the belt being uninterrupted in its momentum, it kept swinging all the way back around to collide hard against the side of the man's fat face.

The resulting howl of fury and pain could be heard from afar, especially since the door to the outside was wide open, but it hardly mattered. He'd known which part of Gotham this was from the moment he'd looked up the address, and how unwilling the citizens of this area were to report any of what they heard to the police. And besides, based on how unsubtle this man seemed to be with his screaming and yelling, there was no way the neighbors around didn't know about what happened in here, so why should they start calling for help now?

_Cowards._

All this suited Damian just fine, though. It meant he had all the time he could ever want to teach this man a lesson.

"How is it that a tiny, weak girl is better at taking hits from that belt than a big guy like you?" He asked mockingly, as Natsuki's father rubbed his sore cheek gingerly. "You must have given her quite the pain tolerance."

Yelling out like a pig again, the man gave away his next move to Damian as he folded up his hand into a fist and thrust it directly against Damian's head. Overall, it was a slow, sloppy, uncoordinated mess of an attack, and Damian needed only to tilt his head to the side in order to avoid contact.

The man's eyes widened in disbelief at Damian's swift movement, and Damian lazily looked to the side where the outstretched arm was an inch away from his head.

"Pitiful." He taunted, and before the man could retract his arm, Damian's hand shot through the air to grab hold of his wrist. Moving before he could react so much as to even blink in confusion, Damian had positioned himself behind him, bending his arm forcefully around his back, making him howl out in pain yet again.

Taking this opportunity while his opponent was distracted, Damian kicked the backside of his legs, forcing him to collapse to his knees with a grunt. Damian thought about how easy it would be to just bend his arm a little bit further to incapacitate him for weeks to come, but decided against it.

Instead, he released the arm, and with a gentle push to his back made the tower of a man fall face first, or, more accurately, belly first down onto the floor.

It was an exceedingly simple move, usually unworthy of a fighter of his caliber, but he had to remind himself of his audience in this room who only knew him as Damian, and not Robin. He turned his head to look at Natsuki, peeking up from her sitting position, looking at him in quiet awe of the takedown. There was no reason to unveil any of his more _flashy_ moves in front of her.

Oh, right. He supposed he _should_ probably ask her if she was okay. He knew she wasn't, because how could she be with those marks, but it was one of those things that normal people did, so might as well.

"You oka-"

"Damian, watch out! Behind you!" She exclaimed, suddenly.

The warning was appreciated, if not a little unnecessary since he'd already spotted her dad's reaching hand moving forward from the floor to grab his foot even before Natsuki had finished her sentence. Still, it was the thought that counted.

Damian jumped into the air, out of his reach, spun around in a backflip, and landed again directly on top of the man's outstretched hand, his shoes pinning it to the floor with a satisfying _crunch_. The man yelled out in pain, and retracted his arm- once Damian allowed it by stepping off his hand, of course.

Okay, so maybe he could be a _little_ flashy. It wasn't every day he got to do something like this, after all.

"Word of advice." Damian said, squinting at the man lying pathetically on the floor, clutching his injured hand. "Stay down."

"You're... dead... kid..." The man gasped through pained intakes of breath.

Damian rolled his eyes. If he had a nickel for every time someone had told him that, he was pretty sure he could buy out his father's company.

"Perhaps I would be intimidated if I wasn't busy actively repressing my gag reflex from the reek of alcohol on your breath." Damian retorted, and turned his back, trusting that the man had enough sense, or at least self-preservation to follow his advice.

He looked down at Natsuki who was still sitting in the corner, looking up at him with the same speechless look of surprise and wonder as before. She appeared so much more tiny and vulnerable here and now, quite the juxtaposition from the confidently aggressive girl at school.

"Can you stand?" Damian asked.

Slowly, she nodded.

"Good. Then I would suggest you come along." Damian said, already having turned back around to walk out of the house. "Unless you want to stay with _that._ "

He gestured at the pathetic heap of a person on the floor, staring hatefully back up at him, breathing deeply. Damian ignored him, and continued towards the front door, hearing Natsuki scrambling to her feet to follow him.

Then, screaming could be heard.

Damian twisted his head back to see Natsuki having walked a bit too close to her father, who'd made a last ditch attempt to keep her there by reaching up with his uninjured hand, grabbing the end of her pink shirt, and pulling her towards him with an expression on his face so angry it barely even resembled a human anymore.

"You're not going anywhere!" He roared, even as Natsuki tried desperately to pull the fabric out of his iron grip.

_Some people never learn._ Damian thought bitterly as he sprang into action, jumping through the air to land a kick directly in the middle of the man's oversized belly, his foot sinking into the soft flesh before it bounced him backwards like the rebound of a trampoline.

Natsuki's father released the grip he had on his daughter as well as a breathless gasp from losing all the air in his lungs to Damian's kick, before he at last started retching and vomiting up thick, yellow slime onto the floor.

Natsuki stumbled a few steps backwards, having lost her balance from being released so suddenly, and Damian hurried to place a gentle hand on her back to steady her again.

She looked up at him, where they exchanged a brief glance of eye contact before a bright blush appeared on her face, and she averted her eyes to the floor, embarrassed for some reason.

Damian silently motioned to leave, and she agreed by nodding, just as noiselessly.

"So that's it, huh?" Her father groaned from behind, every one of his words a hoarse gasp in effort. "I raised you your whole life, and this is the thanks I get? You running off with the first boy you lay your eyes on, just like your whore mother?!"

Damian and Natsuki had made it to the doorframe before Natsuki froze up on the spot at hearing her father's words. Damian glanced at her, seeing that her face was still flushed, but not, it seemed, from embarrassment this time. In fact, it was the first time since he'd come here that she actually looked like the Natsuki he knew from the Club.

She turned on the spot, stomping backwards towards her father. Damian turned as well, staying put, but ready to jump in if needed again. Natsuki's face was twisted into a snarl of such magnitude that Damian could practically see the years worth of abuse from her dad on it, all of it leading up to this one moment as she stared down at her father still lying on the floor.

"I would rather be a whore like her than end up like you!" She screamed at the top of her lungs before lifting her leg back, and aimed a kick right at her father's face, hitting the bridge of his nose as hard as she could.

His head dangled uselessly to his side as he lost consciousness, a steady stream of blood from his now broken nose blending in with the vomit.

Natsuki kept staring down at him, unmoving as she took several long deep breaths, before finally turning away, grabbed a small, pink purse hanging over a clothes rack and walked over past Damian and the doorframe, stepping foot into the darkening outside.

"Let's go." Natsuki called behind her in her typical commanding voice, hiding the fact well that she had no idea where she was even going.

Damian took a final glance behind him, quickly determining that her dad _probably_ wouldn't die being left on the floor like that, before lifting the broken front door to position it as neatly as he could in front of the opening and hurrying over to join Natsuki.

* * *

"Okay, so what the hell just happened?!" Natsuki loudly asked.

"Is that a rhetorical question?" Damian calmly asked back in return. The previous events seemed pretty clear and obvious to him.

They'd been walking side by side along the road for a good twenty minutes now, gaining a decent amount of distance from Natsuki's house.

Neither of them had said anything to the other during their trek, which suited Damian just fine, since he didn't really think there was anything important enough to be worth talking about anyway.

But evidently, Natsuki disagreed.

"Do you normally go around and beat up people's fathers in their homes?" She asked, looking at him with the usual aggressive attitude she was known for at the Club, seemingly with no trace of her scared demeanor from the house left. Damian found that her more familiar tone of voice didn't annoy him as much anymore, for some reason.

"Are you complaining?" He retorted.

Natsuki scoffed.

"Obviously not, but it's still pretty damn surreal to have a teenager from my school show up at my home and kick my old man's ass, don't you think? I mean, how did you even do that? He was like a hundred times bigger than you."

"Karate classes." Damian said, automatically, this being his go-to excuse for when civilians got to witness a portion of his fighting skill. And technically he wasn't lying about it, he just neglected to also mention the over 170 other martial arts he'd mastered.

"O-kaay." Natsuki responded, skeptically. "That still doesn't explain _why_ you would do something like that, though."

Damian furrowed his eyebrows, confused. He didn't understand what she found so odd about it. He'd witnessed something that wasn't right, and had put a stop to it. That... was what you were supposed to do, wasn't it?

"Parents shouldn't hit their children." He opted to say, quietly. She didn't seem to have anything to say in response.

Silence lingered, and only the idle sounds of their shoes against the concrete of the sidewalk could be heard for a while.

"Well, it's getting dark." Natsuki said, breaking the quiet as she gestured to the sun that was just barely visible on the horizon. "I suppose I should go down to the park and start looking around for a nice bench to spend the night on."

Damian raised an eyebrow.

"Why would you do that?" He asked.

Natsuki made a noise that sounded like a mixture of a sigh and a snort at the same time.

"Well, I'm not sure if you noticed, but I don't think I can really go back to my place again tonight. Especially not after... after what I said to him."

She averted her face from his view, and he saw her lift a hand to where her eyes had to be, clearly wiping away tears. Once again, he had trouble understanding this female.

"Obviously." He said. "Which is why you're staying at my place."

She snapped her head back to look at him again, blinking in dazed confusion and surprise, her wide pink eyes looking glistening and wet in the sunset, confirming his guess.

He smirked at her disbelieving stare.

"Did you honestly think I was just going to leave you on your own after all of this?"

"Wha- I mean- well, I-" She sputtered, trying to find the right words, before giving up and hitting him on the shoulder with so little force he could barely even feel it.

"How would I know!?" She exclaimed at last, her face flushing up in a deep shade of red, matching the sunset. "It's not like you tell me anything, you dick! I think I can be excused for not being able to tell the intentions of the weird autistic vampire kid who basically kidnapped me from my home!"

"Sounds to me like you're just making up excuses." Damian said, surprised at himself by how much her flustered protests seemed to amuse him. "Disappointing, honestly. And here I was thinking you were starting to appear somewhat intelligent."

"Oh my God, shut up dummy!" Natsuki yelled back, hitting his shoulder again. But he could clearly hear the giggling laughter in her voice and see the relief on her face at not having to spend the rest of the evening and night on a park bench.

"Alright, Damian." She said, and he realized this was possibly the first time she addressed him by his actual name, without putting some mocking emphasis on it. "Lead the way."

* * *

"Dude, this food is freaking amazing!" Natsuki exclaimed in awe, as she gulped down another helping of the Mushroom Wellington with rosemary and pecans she'd been served at the giant table placed in the middle of the dining hall of Wayne Manor. "I didn't believe someone could make this kind of rabbit food actually taste good. And I still can't believe that you're apparently a vegetarian."

"Meat is murder." Damian said, eliciting an annoyed groan from the girl as he took a small bite of his own food.

She'd quickly managed to overcome her initial shock of the sheer magnitude of the mansion when the dinner had been served. Damian thought that maybe she finally believed that he actually lived here now.

"You're too kind Miss," the dignified, dry british voice of Alfred Pennyworth said, as he emerged from the kitchen with another tray of steaming food that there was no way the two teens could ever eat on their own, despite Natsuki's best efforts.

Alfred was wearing his usual butler outfit, consisting of a black tuxedo as extravagant as the rest of the manor with a long tailcoat reaching down to his legs which were adorned with striped, gray pants and black shoes polished to the point where you could see your own reflection in them. And although Damian knew he was wearing his classical black bowtie on his white dress shirt underneath the tuxedo, both were currently hidden behind the large, white apron he'd wrapped around himself when he'd gone into the kitchen to cook them dinner.

One could wonder why the Wayne family Butler had put on the apron when he had never once in all the years Damian had known him, spilled even a drop of sauce on it, or why he was so insistent on going through the effort of wearing this Victorian-Era style outfit even when there was hardly anyone left living in this house for him to impress anymore. But, it wasn't like the people who visited were in a position to comment on it, since a large percentage of them dressed up as bats and other animals in their own spare time.

The balding, blackhaired family butler with the thin, black moustache over his lips hadn't even raised an eyebrow when Damian had introduced him to the girl he'd brought home, instead merely welcoming her inside with his usual ever-pleasant, casual and professional voice, as if he'd known her for as long as he did someone like Damian's father, and had swiftly begun preparing their dinner.

"I merely wish I could have been told of your arrival a few moments before, so I could have prepared a proper dinner." Alfred said, placing the tray containing a huge, savory Indian-spiced Vegetarian Shepherd's Pie on the table right in front of Natsuki, whose eyes seemed to bulge outwards at the sight. "Hopefully this simple meal I was able to whip up from leftovers in the refrigerator can be deemed satisfactory enough."

As the butler turned around to retreat back into the kitchen, Damian saw Natsuki looking at him with questioning eyes, as she gestured to the food, then back over towards Alfred. She seemed to be lost for words, unsure how to react.

Damian shrugged in response, stabbing a piece of mushroom on his own plate, placing it in his mouth. He'd long since given up on his attempts to decipher Alfred's special brand of humor, and now just assumed that every time he spoke up in that dry, british voice of his, it was at least somewhat coated in thick sarcasm.

"I can't believe you got a freaking butler." Natsuki said, reaching over to cut out a big piece of the newly arrived pie, despite the already sizable pile of food on her plate. "Like, this whole place is already pushing it, but a butler? Are people even allowed to be this rich?"

"Pennyworth is much more than just a butler." Damian said, picking up a white napkin to dry his mouth after finishing his bite. Unlike Natsuki, he'd opted for a much more reasonable portion size. "He's one of my best, and only friends."

"My Word!" Alfred exclaimed as he emerged from the kitchen again, still in that usual dry and monotone voice. "A compliment, from Master Damian? Those are rare and few indeed, I must remember to mark this momentous occasion down in the calendar."

"Did I say friend?" Damian said, scowling up at the butler whose face as always was neutral and unreadable, as he took hold of Damian's finished plate to carry it away. "I meant to say he's one of the most annoying, unrespectful employees who should have been fired long ago!"

"Ah, that's more like it." Alfred said, and Damian didn't miss the wink he shot at Natsuki, who giggled lightly in response.

"Now I know where you got your vocabulary from." Natsuki said, looking derisively at Damian. "If that's the guy you spent all your time talking to, it's no wonder your speech patterns are like that."

Damian furrowed his brows.

"What's wrong with the way I talk?"

"Oh, nothing." Natsuki said, raising a glass of water to her mouth, clearly in effort to hide the smile on her face.

Then, after a few seconds, she seemed to sober up a bit again.

"Are you sure it's really okay for me to stay here for the night?" She asked, a hesitative and slightly nervous expression on her face. Damian thought this really must be bothering her, since it wasn't the first time tonight she'd asked this.

"You are more than welcome to stay for as long as you'd like, Miss." Alfred said, as he continued his duties, walking back into the kitchen with Damian's used plate. "Since goodness knows we have more than enough space for it."

"No kidding." Natsuki said quietly, looking around the dining room, taking in the fancy decorations and majestic items strewn about, while idly cutting out a bite-sized piece of the pie on her plate. "This place is incredible."

"Yes, I suppose it's all very shiny." Damian said, giving the room a glance over as well. He'd never really found the Manor to be all that, his interests having always been far more attached to the space _beneath_ the mansion. This whole place had always just seemed like a bunch of expensive, useless fluff items for rich people to gawk at, and he was seriously unimpressed by the lack of weapons on display. He knew it was a necessary facade to keep his father's secret, but he still thought the amount of crystal chandeliers hanging all over the ceilings in every room was just a _bit_ exuberant.

Even the robot dinosaur served a better use than those.

"Shiny? Dude, this place looks like a castle from a Disney movie!" Natsuki said, laughing. "I'm almost expecting the silverware to start coming to life and sing songs about the magic of friendship, and-"

She stopped her sentence abruptly, her laughter dying out as a jolt seemed to go through her body. A pained expression littered her face, and she put down her fork to grasp her side, wincing.

"You okay?" Damian asked, remembering the brief flash he'd gotten of the skin underneath her shirt at the house, and the bruises on it.

"What?" Natsuki said, looking up as if she'd forgotten he was there, before smiling and brushing him off. "Oh, yeah. Nothing's wrong, I'm peachy."

Damian wasn't convinced.

"We got painkillers, if you want them." He said, knowing those pills were the only things capable of making his father stand upright after particularly rough nights out in the City.

"Nah, don't need them." Natsuki said, picking up her fork again without making eye contact. "It's nothing."

"Those bruises didn't look like nothing, Natsuki."

"It's fine, I've had worse." She said, in a far more insistent voice. "This was actually one of the bastard's weaker hits. Totally pathetic compared to past incidents."

She was unable to hide the faint shaking in her voice at the mention of her father.

"Even so, a painkiller wouldn't hur-"

"Look, can you drop it?!" She exclaimed, cutting him off, her voice raised. "I'm fine! I can take this, I'm not weak, and I don't need your pity."

"Okay." Damian said, shrugging. If she was so adamant on refusing help, then she could suit herself.

An awkward silence lingered after her outburst, with Natsuki looking down at her plate, fork raised, ready to take in a piece of the pie, before she winced again, gasped, and dropped the utensil on her plate with a loud clatter.

She sat there for a few seconds, breathing slowly, as if trying to compose herself again. Damian shot her a quick glance, but left her otherwise to her own devices, like she'd told him to.

"...Okay." She finally said, after a minute of this passed. Her voice was very low, and she still refused to look up at him, but from what he could see beneath her pink hair, her face looked very red. "Maybe I could do with a pill. Just one, though."

Damian nodded, not wishing to comment any further, and motioned to move out of his chair. Just when he'd gotten up however, a loud buzzing could be heard from the far corner of the room, making both him and Natsuki look towards the intruding noise.

"What's that?" Natsuki perked up.

"The Gate Alert." Damian said, turning his head to see Alfred already on his way over to the small screen on the far side of the wall. "It means we have a visitor."

Alfred pressed a button by the side of the screen, making it flicker to life and show a black and white look from the camera installed inside the black gate outside. A familiar man was glaring directly into the lens, a sour expression on his face.

Damian tensed up.

"This is Alfred Pennyworth, caretaker of the Wayne Residence." The butler politely announced, holding his finger onto the button which activated the microphone installed, projecting his voice to the front gate where the man was. "How may I be of service?"

And if Natsuki hadn't been able to recognize the man, sitting this far away from the screen showing the filthy hair on his head, the pudgy, rat-like face or the dried blood running down his bent nose, then she certainly would now that her father's voice scratched through the speaker of the screen, filling the dining hall up with his angry vocalizations..

_"For starters, you can open these blasted gates and let me in!"_ The man demanded, and Damian turned his head towards Natsuki, seeing her straighten up, her eyes wide with pure terror on her face. _"You have something that belongs to me, and I want it back!"_

Alfred removed his finger from the speaker button, and turned his head slightly to glance over at Natsuki, his expression as unreadable as always. Natsuki violently shook her head at him, a pleading look on her face, desperately begging him in silence not to go through with her father's order.

Alfred looked back towards the screen, and activated the microphone again.

"Certainly, Sir." He said, despite the silent protests from the pinkhaired girl. "I shall open the gates at once, so we can properly discuss this matter, face to face."

_"Yeah, yeah, just hurry up. I haven't got all night."_

Alfred deactivated the screen, and pressed the largest button present on the device, which Damian knew activated the opening mechanism of the gates.

"How did he find me?" Natsuki said, more to herself than anyone else. "It makes no sense! How did he know where I was?!"

Then, she looked up at Alfred who was untying the white apron around his suit, to make himself presentable to the man he'd invited in. Her eyes were those of sheer panic.

"Why would you open the gates?! You have no idea what he's like! I could hear on his voice how angry he is!"

"The man wished to speak to me." Alfred said simply, looking down at Natsuki with his usual unconcerned face of complete neutrality. "I would be a poor host to deny him of such a request."

She stared up at him in silent disbelief, before a hammering banging on the front door jolted her out of her trance.

"That would be him." Alfred said, motioning to walk towards the door, but Natsuki's arm reached out to grab his wrist, intercepting his movement.

"Please, Miss Natsuki." Alfred said, looking down at her. "It would be ill-mannered to keep our guest waiting at the door!"

"You can't open that door." Natsuki said, and Damian saw tears forming in her pink eyes once again. "I... I'll do it. Go back to him. He'll- he'll be mad at me, but if you answer the door, he's going to kill you. L- let me do it."

"Absolutely not." Damian angrily cut in, placing a hand on her shoulder. "You're not going back to him under any circumstances."

There was another angry banging at the door, and Alfred reached down with his other hand, dislodging himself from Natsuki's grip.

"Master Damian." He said, as he without hesitation made his way towards the front door. "I should think it a good idea if you showed your female friend where she will spend the night, while I clear things up with this Gentleman."

_Friend?_ Damian thought, Alfred's choice of words throwing him off slightly. _Is that what she's become to me now? A friend?_

"Right." Damian said, pushing away his useless thoughts of confusion and grabbed a firm hold of Natsuki's hand. He pulled her along with him towards the stairs, the girl seeming too stunned in shock to protest.

"Come on." He said, as he guided her. "Let's get you that pill."

"Wh- what? Wait, no!" Natsuki exclaimed, and planted both her feet firmly in the floor, refusing to go along any further. "We can't just leave your butler like this. He'll get beaten to a bloody pulp, and then my dad is going to come in and take me by force!"

"Well, at least if that happens, Pennyworth's inflated ego might be taken down a peg or two, and then maybe he won't be as irritating to be around anymore." Damian said, trying to channel Jon by telling lighthearted jokes meant to calm the distressed subject, in this case Natsuki, and insert some levity into the situation.

But evidently it didn't work, as seen from the horrified expression on her face and the tears swelling up in her eyes anew. Damian decided then to ditch the jokes and be more of his usual serious self then.

"Look. Pennyworth is much more capable than he looks, and he's dealt with worse than your lowlife of a father." He said. Natsuki shot him a skeptical look.

"I promise you." Damian continued. "Even if he proves more difficult for Pennyworth to handle, I won't let him take you. I've beaten him before already, and I'll do so again if necessary. But let's just wait and see how this is going to play out, okay? What do you say?"

He could see on her face that she still didn't believe him, still feared for Alfred's life. But then she sighed, and nodded.

"Alright" He said. "I think if we just stand here, we should be able to hear everything that happens.

And as if on cue, the sound of the front door being opened from the entrance hall could be heard.

"Welcome to Wayne Manor." Damian heard Alfred's polite voice as he greeted the man who'd knocked on the door, with no sign of hesitation or fear at what Damian knew was quite a frightful appearance from how he and Natsuki had left him. "How may I help you?"

Natsuki's father spoke up next in his gruff, angry voice, and in that same moment, Damian felt something warm close tightly around his hand.

"Let's get to the point, Jeeves. I want my daughter back."

Damian looked down his side to see Natsuki having closed the distance between them, and had her fingers locked in something of a deathgrip around his hand. The small girl was staring dead ahead of her, straight into a wall while looking paler than he'd ever seen her before.

"I beg your pardon, but I'm afraid you will have to be a bit more specific." Alfred responded calmly. "You see, Master Bruce has brought home quite a few orphans and children in need over the years, so you can understand it can be a bit difficult to keep track of them all."

Damian cracked a smile at this. He'd have to admit Alfred's witticisms could be construed as humorous sometimes, when they weren't at the expense of himself, of course. He looked down again to gauge Natsuki's reaction, but saw that she only looked more terrified than she'd already been, while squeezing his hand ever tighter.

He kept listening.

"Cut the crap." Natsuki's father growled impatiently. "Some darkhaired brat broke into my house, damn near broke my arm, incited my own daughter to break my nose, and then kidnapped her!"

"Quite the predicament." Alfred commented dryly. "But I have to ask, why would you think she is located here, of all places?"

"The bitch forgot to turn off her phone." The man said, a triumphant edge to his sneering voice. "I could track her location using an app, and it led me right to this place. Whaddaya think of that, huh?"

Natsuki gave a small gasp, then began fumbling madly in the small pink purse hanging across her shoulder, finally retrieving the smartphone from its depths. She quickly started holding down a button for a few seconds, in order to turn off the device.

"Simply ingenious." Alfred said, without losing his cool. "I must admit however that I am quite inept when it comes to technology. Master Bruce has something of a personal cave of sorts, filled to the brim with all sorts of nonsense oddities and gizmos that I hardly know what to do with. I'm always nervous I might break something when I enter to clean. Could I trouble you to explain what exactly this 'app,' as you say, does, and how you can tell she's here?"

There was a loud, exasperated sigh from Natsuki's father, and Damian thought Alfred really played the part of a foolish old man well, to the point that he almost believed his claims himself, despite having seen him countless times guiding his father over the Batcomputer with professional expertise whenever Barbara wasn't available as Oracle.

An awkward pause then took place in their conversation, which led Damian to guess that the man was probably fumbling a bit with his own phone, trying to pull up the app to show Alfred.

Then, he yelled in fury.

"What the- she's gone!"

"My word." Alfred said.

"This proves it!" Her dad exclaimed, excited. "She must be nearby, listening! She turned off her phone so I can't find her!"

Natsuki's grip tightened around Damian's hand. He wondered if he should say something comforting to her, but since he didn't know what that something should be, he decided to continue letting Alfred have the word in the other room.

"I don't mean to imply anything, but are you quite sure you didn't misread that small screen?" The butler suggested. "Sometimes a speck of dirt or a tiny arachnid can obscure what you read, like turning an 'L' into an 'I' and the like. It can happen to the best of us, if we aren't too careful."

"I'm not an idiot!" The other man snarled.

"Clearly." Alfred replied sardonically.

"Let me inside." The man ordered. "Step aside so I can search the house for my daughter."

Damian wondered how he still hadn't lost feeling in his fingers with the way Natsuki was squeezing him now.

"Now, I am sorry to say this." Alfred said, still in a polite tone, but with a definite twinge of iron to it as well, letting the other man know that this wasn't up for debate. "But I do believe I will have to protest now. You see, Master Bruce has given me clear and strict instructions of not letting in strangers while he's away, and since he's currently unavailable for calling, I am unable to get his consent for you to enter. So as you see, I must abide by the commands I've been given."

"That so, huh? And what if I return with the police then?"

"Oh my. While that would be a different story entirely, I do not believe it is in your best interest to do so."

"Yeah? And why is that?"

"Well you see, if say you got a warrant, and then let us say that law enforcement did a search on the Manor, and then just for the sake of argument say they found this hypothetical girl of yours. How would you think they would react when they saw the years worth of trauma, malnourishment and abuse left on her body by yourself?"

There was a stunned silence, and Damian could practically see the dumbfounded, speechless look on the man's ratty face as he took in Alfred's words.

_Well played, Pennyworth._ Damian thought. A lot of the members of the Batfamily, himself included, often forgot about Alfred's own detective skills, which at times rivaled even those of his father's. The butler had been able to deduce the exact relationship Natsuki had with her father just by taking in the context clues, and the way she moved and carried herself.

"Now, make no mistake." Alfred kept going. "In this scenario you describe, the boy who as you say committed the kidnapping would certainly take on some of the punishment, no doubt. But I must ask you, which one would you think they would come down hardest on? A minor who in his mind saved a girl in need, or a father who beats his daughter?"

"Are you threatening me?" Natsuki's dad said in such a low voice that Damian had to strain his hearing.

"Oh, I apologize for making that unclear." Alfred responded pleasantly. "Yes, Sir. Yes I am."

"You don't think I can _discipline_ you just as easily as I can her?"

"No!" Natsuki breathed. Damian shushed her.

"Oh, I have no doubts you'll be quite capable of showing a frail, old man like me what for, a big, strong man like yourself." Alfred said. "But one would have to wonder how that would look on you, should the police arrive."

_Not to mention what I'm going to do to you if you lay as much as a finger on him._ Damian thought.

"Then again, you did make the claim yourself that it was two minors who caused those ghastly injuries on your person, so who's to say what would happen should we engage in fisticuffs indeed." Alfred added, thoughtfully.

Silence followed in the wake of those words, going on for as long as two minutes. Damian glanced down to see Natsuki looking more like a statue than anything else, her cheeks wet from tear stains as she kept up her intense stare into the opposite wall. He didn't even think she was daring to breathe.

"You know what?" Her father snarled at long last. "Fine. Keep the brat for now, if you love her so much. But once you get tired of how disrespectful and spoiled she acts, don't come crawling back to me. You'll soon realize that some good, old-fashioned discipline is the only way to knock some sense into her!"

"I shall take your kind advice under consideration, should I ever see this undoubtedly sweet girl you're talking about."

"This isn't over!" The angry voice shouted even as Damian could hear it growing fainter, marching away. "I'm gonna get myself a good lawyer, and then we'll see how smug you'll act when I sue you in Court!"

"Then I suppose I shall see you then. Have a good night, Sir."

Then, the sound of Alfred closing the front door could be heard, followed by his calling voice.

"He's on his way to the gate now. It is quite safe for you to come out again, Miss Natsuki."

Natsuki took a long, shuddering breath before she let go of Damian's hand, and rushed towards the entrance hall. Damian followed her, turning the corner to see her throwing her arms around the lower part of Alfred's body (her being unable to reach higher) as she started loudly thanking him.

"I can't believe you did that!" She exclaimed, gratefully. " _How_ did you even do that? No one has ever dared talk back to him like that, except you and Damian! You're so awesome! Thank you so much, Mr. Pennyworth!"

"I'm charmed." Alfred said, and Damian saw his lips stretched upwards in one of his rare smiles, breaking his facade of neutral indifference, as he reached down to pat Natsuki appreciatively on her pinkhaired head.

Then, she let go of him, and her face of pure joy seemed to sober up as a realization took hold of her.

"This... this isn't over." She said quietly, echoing her father. "He's going to get a lawyer. Oh God. He's not going to give up."

"Neither will we." Damian said.

"Quite right." Alfred nodded. "Master Bruce has been in plenty of tighter spots than this in Court. We're very familiar with this terrain, Miss. I am confident that you needn't worry about anything.

"You'd... you'd go through that... for me?" She asked, eyes wide.

"Naturally." Alfred said, as if it was the simplest thing to understand in the world. "Now, I do recall telling you to show our guest her new room, Master Damian?"

"Right." Damian replied, and took hold of Natsuki's hand, seeing she couldn't help herself sporting a wide smile across her face, even as she sniffed from all the tears streaming down. She looked at him without any trace of her usual cynicism or suspiciousness.

It was a strangely... _cute_ look for her?

He pushed this uncharacteristic and unwanted intrusive thought out of his mind, as he gestured for her to follow him.

* * *

As they reached the second floor, Damian and Natsuki made their way past the many doors to the various bedrooms of the house, each one of them adorned with a golden plate engraved with the names of the members in this extended "family". The people the rooms belonged to hardly ever used them, but Alfred made sure to keep them clean and ready each and every day in the case one of them needed a place to stay the night.

To name an example, Jason Todd would sometimes at about a bi-monthly rate show up at the front door, usually bloody and beaten, not knowing where else to go. He would then typically take a shower, treat his wounds with the first aid kit helpfully planted in each of the rooms, and sleep off some of the pain before leaving again in the early morning.

Damian had an ever ongoing battle of sorts with Alfred, in which he would fill Jason's room up with crowbars of various shapes and sizes to greet Jason when he paid one of his visits, which the butler would promptly remove the minute he noticed them. As such, Jason had yet to experience Damian's prank, but one day...

Damian stopped at the door right next to the one to his own room. It was one of the rooms that had yet to get an owner assigned to it, and as such the golden plate attached to it was blank and reflective. A guest room.

"This is it." Damian said, opening the door. Inside was a large, canopied bed, snugly made with sheets, blankets and pillows all completely pink, matching Natsuki's hair and eyes perfectly.

Damian frowned.

Was this a coincidence, or had Alfred actually gone up here to accomodate the room to the girl's appearance when she'd arrived? He hadn't even seen him leave the kitchen and dining hall all the time they'd been here.

On the opposite side from the bed stood a black sofa propped up against the wall, and a wooden desk by the far end of the room, on top of which was positioned a large flatscreen monitor which could be used by the guest for TV and computer purposes. On the side, a small refrigerator was installed, and a door leading to a personal bathroom.

Damian walked over to the desk and opened one of the drawers he knew contained the first aid kid, fumbling a bit before retrieving a glass vial of painkillers.

"Here." He said, handing them to Natsuki, who hadn't said anything since entering, instead just staring at the furniture of the room. Damian raised an eyebrow, unsure of what to do.

"Is... something wrong?" He tried.

She blinked, before her eyes focused on him, as if just noticing him here now.

"This is... a guest room?" She muttered in quiet awe, looking around, her eyes lingering a bit when they turned upwards and saw yet another crystal chandelier.

"Yes." Damian said, wondering why he had to clarify something this simple. "Now, if you need something to drink along with this pill, I'm pretty sure Pennyworth has filled up the refrigerator with just about every type of refreshment you could ever want. Come to think of it, he might have forgotten to remove the alcohol. I can chec-"

"It's so... big." Natsuki said, ignoring Damian. "And from what I saw in the hallway... there's at least ten other rooms just like this?"

"Actually, I think this is one of the smaller rooms." Damian clarified.

"Wow." Natsuki exclaimed, as she sat down on the pink bed, looking like she was on the verge of fainting from exhaustion. "So this is what it's like being rich."

A silence lingered, before Damian tried to bring the topic back to the painkillers again, by moving forwards, and opening the fridge.

"So, we got water, juice, Soder Cola, ice tea... looks like Alfred did remove the alcohol, but I know where he keeps it so it's not exactly off the table if you're into that stu-"

"Why did you do it?" Natsuki interrupted him for what felt like the tenth time today, making him contemplate why he even bothered to say anything when in close proximity to her.

"Why did I do what?" He asked, closing the refrigerator door again and looked at the girl sitting on the bed, looking at him in turn with a confused expression, as if she was trying to solve a difficult puzzle.

"Don't play dumb, you know what." She said, furrowing her brows, a bit of that familiar annoyance creeping into her voice again. "Why did you... do that, to my dad? Why did you bring me here? I don't understand."

Damian furrowed his own brows.

"I don't follow." He said, truthfully. "I saw you needed help, so I helped. What's the problem?"

"I still don't get it. I... I don't deserve this." She said, averting her eyes from his to look down at the floor, blushing. "I've done nothing to earn this level of kindness. I've been so rude, tactless and... and a total _bitch,_ towards everyone around me, especially you. Called you names, insulted your poem. It doesn't make sense that you would just disregard all of that, and even be willing to go to Court for me because 'I needed help.' Things aren't that simple."

"They are to me." Damian said with a shrug.

"Why are you being so nice to me?" Natsuki implored. "Explain it to me."

Damian sighed, and then moved over to sit down next to her on the bed.

"You might not have noticed this." He started. "But I have a bit of an attitude problem myself.

Natsuki snorted.

"Okay, okay." He corrected himself. "A _lot_ of an attitude problem then, fine. Point is, I'm actually a lot better now than I was before, mainly because of being arund people like Alfred Pennyworth, my brother Dick Grayson, and Jon Kent."

He paused, considering how much of his past he could allow Natsuki to hear, before going on.

"My mother... wasn't exactly the kindest woman. Although certainly much more intelligent, she makes your father seem like Superman in terms of gentleness and caring."

"That's hard to believe." Natsuki commented.

"Believe it." Damian said. "I saw enough to get a faint idea of what you have suffered through the years, but whatever he's done to you, I guarantee she has done worse. She would regularly put me in situations of almost certain death in order to make me 'stronger.' She used violence and cruelty as tools to turn me into more of a weapon than an actual human being, with love and kindness being a luxury I couldn't afford, before she dumped me here on my father's doorstep, abandoning me."

"I'm... sorry to hear tha-" Natsuki started, but Damian held up a hand to stop her.

"Stop. I'm not telling you this to get your pity, or to guilt-trip you. I'm trying to make you understand. I was angry, and entitled back then, a result of being raised by her. If you think you behave like 'a bitch' sometimes, I actually tried to kill my father, on multiple occasions. I got close at some points, too. I was acting out, and throwing temper tantrums that actively threw the people around me in mortal danger. I have maimed my own father, and he has scars on his body that are solely my doing. I was the worst."

Natsuki had a wide-eyed look of fear on her face as she listened. Damian went on. He was finally getting to his point.

"But despite all of that, my father never hit me back. He never asked for me, didn't even consent to conceiving me, and yet, when my mother left me, an obnoxious, downright sociopathic collection of issues and character flaws to him, he never once laid a hand on me. Even when I deserved it 100%. _That's_ what parents are supposed to do. Love and care for their children, no matter what."

Damian sighed.

"I'm lucky to be free of my mother's clutches, and be a part of a family such as this, with the greatest father in the world. And if I can prevent another person from going down a similar dark path of parental abuse, then it will all have been worth it. We will beat your father, Natsuki. I promise you that."

He'd stopped talking, and Natsuki looked at him in stunned silence. Then, she leaned forwards to put her arms around him.

"Thank you." She said in a shaky voice, as her head made contact with his shoulder. "For everything."

Damian didn't like hugs, or to be physically touched. But... strangely enough, he didn't mind this for some reason. It was awkward, sure, but not entirely unpleasant.

He half-heartedly raised his arm to pat her back a few times.

"Don't mention it." He said.

* * *

Damian was just putting the finishing touches on his completed homework, writing down his corrections to his teacher's own notes and asking her (in the kindest way he was able, of course) if she was quite sure she had the qualifications necessary to be able to teach, before a light knocking on his door could be heard.

"Enter." He said, and the door opened to reveal a red-faced Natsuki frowning at him.

"Yes?" He said, wondering what this intrusion was for. It had barely been twenty minutes since he had left her room, bidding her a good rest of the night.

"Oh. Homework. She said, raising her eyebrows as she saw what he was doing. "I just realized I have like, none of my stuff here for tomorrow. No homework, no uniform."

"I can have an associate pick it up from your place, and have it ready here by morning." Damian said.

"An 'associate?'" Natsuki asked.

"Family member." Damian clarified, thinking that Cassandra would certainly do him this favor if he softened her up first by admitting that he really had needed her help previously today. It would be difficult, but he was feeling particularly altruistic for some reason.

"Are they as skilled as you?" Natsuki asked, unsure.

"No, because that's not physically possible." Damian smirked. "But they should prove more than capable of handling your father, should he be difficult."

"Oh neat. Great." Natsuki said, and lingered in the doorframe awkwardly.

"Was there... something else, you wanted?" Damian asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Can I sleep with you?" Natsuki blurted out.

Damian blinked.

"Wh-"

"Don't get any funny ideas!" The pinkhaired girl exclaimed, her face flushing up even further. "I just meant if I could spend the night here in this room. Not on your bed or anything, but just... a mattress on your floor is fine. I don't need much space."

"Why?" Damian asked. "Is there something wrong with your own room?"

"Oh no, nothing's wrong with the five star room befitting royalty more than any actual person." She scoffed. "I just... I don't think I can sleep alone, after what happened today. Every time I close my eyes, I just think of _him,_ and hear his voice, yelling at me."

She looked to the side, hiding her face away from him, embarrased.

"It'll just be for tonight. A one time thing while I get settled here."

Damian merely looked at her in response. This _really_ didn't seem like a good idea, considering his own relationship with sleeping, and if anything, sounded like a repeat of the disastrous 'reading with Yuri' arrangement he was now stuck in. He had better things to do than being a safety pillow for a girl with nightmare issues.

"Please?" She asked in a low voice.

_I should say no. She should know better than to ask this of me. I shouldn't even be considering this. I'm going to say no._

"Sure." Damian sighed, consigning himself to his fate.

_What is happening to me? Am I getting soft?_

Natsuki turned her head towards him, her face lighting up in surprise and disbelief at his consent.

"Wait, really? Uh, I mean, that's cool. D- don't get me wrong, it's not like I need you or anything, you're just the only other person here aside from the butler. I can handle myself, y'kno-"

"Just get your mattress." Damian said impatiently, putting a merciful stop to her rambling.

"Right." She confirmed in a low, flustered voice, as she hurried out the door.

_She better fall asleep fast._ He thought, suppressing a groan.

After a few excursions back and forth between rooms, Natsuki finally managed to drag in the mattress, pillow and blanket she needed for the night, into Damian's room, laying them all in a bundle on the middle of the floor, before settling herself on top of it.

Wanting to speed this process along, Damian quickly bid her a good night, turned off the lights and settled himself in his own bed despite this being way too early from when he usually laid himself to rest, and listened to the low breathing coming from his floor in order to determine how long he had to keep staying like this.

As he laid there, silent and unmoving, not wanting to encourage any further activity from his 'guest,' he started considering all the things he'd accomplished today, especially regarding Natsuki. He hadn't even gotten to tell her about the things he'd discovered about Monika, the original purpose to his visit. But he found that it didn't really matter to him, as he could always tell her about it tomorrow.

He blinked a few times at the realization that this was just one more thing in a long list of uncharacteristic actions from him today. Not telling her about this otherwise impressive information that would surely have gained him a significant amount of praise. Bringing her here, unnecessarily endangering him and his father's identities instead of just dropping her off at an orphanage or something like that. Promised her that they would go through something as dreary as a Court of Law.

His heart started pounding harder. He'd even opened up to her, telling her about some of his past with Talia Al Ghul, his mother. He never did that, not even to Grayson. And yet, strangely enough, it felt... good, to talk about these things with a girl he'd previously found so infuriating.

Natsuki had been right. It _was_ odd for him to do this.

_What is going on?_ He thought in a mild panic. _Why am I acting this way in front of her?_

He didn't know. And that alone was reason enough to get out of here.

When at last her breathing became slow and regulated enough for him to know that she had fallen asleep, he wasted no further time in jumping out of his bed soundlessly, making his way out of his room, out into the hallway...

...only to be met by a waiting Alfred, standing a few feet away from Damian's door, his arms crossed with an unimpressed look on his face. It was clear he had been waiting there.

"And where would you think that you would be going, young Master Damian?"

Damian stared at the butler, unprepared for his presence.

"I- have to go on patrol." He responded, hoping that would serve as enough explanation.

"I think not." Alfred said, simply. "You have a sweet, possibly traumatized girl inside that room, counting on you to be there for her in a big, strange house with no one else to take care of her, and you were planning on just leaving her alone like that, in order to go out and punch criminals in your colourful outfit?"

Once again, the butler displayed a downright uncanny ability to seemingly know the full details of a situation he hadn't even been there for.

Damian rolled his eyes. This was going to get annoying.

"The people on the streets of Gotham need me, Alfred." Damian protested. "They outweigh the needs of one girl, who's as safe as she could possibly get."

"Really now?" Alfred asked, clearly rhetorically. "One would think that the likes of Masters Luke Fox and Jean-Paul Valley would be decent enough protection for the night, no? Can the 'people on the streets of Gotham' really not do without Robin for one night?"

_Of course he's noted the scheduling of the rest of the family._ Damian grit his teeth as he quickly changed strategy.

"I have to feed my animals!" He pointed out, referring to the small Zoo near the bottom of the Batcave, where he kept the abandoned critters he'd saved over the years. "And I've got an active case that I need to investigate further."

"I think you are perfectly aware of the fact that _I_ am usually the one providing for your furry and feathery friends, something that I do not mind doing in the slightest." Alfred one-upped him. "And I just so happen to know that the blood sample you inserted into the deep analyzer this afternoon is going to take at the very least until the next day before it can provide you with any usable results."

"L- look, Pennyworth." Damian started, changing his strategy a second time, surprised by his own apparent stuttering as well as the sensation of his face growing hot. "I- I can't go back in there."

"Oh? And why is that?" Alfred asked, puzzled.

"I, as well as the Cain girl made a trip to the hideout of Poison Ivy earlier today." Damian explained. "The mission through no fault of mine went awry, which resulted in me inhaling a small amount of her pheromones, which I'm starting to think based on recent actions of mine is affecting how I think about this girl. I cannot spend another second in her proximity being in the compromised state that I so clearly am."

"Ah, I see." Alfred said, a small grin appearing on his face. "You are so very much like your father, Master Damian."

Although usually he would take that comment with the highest honor and appreciation, Damian squinted suspiciously at the butler's tone.

"Meaning what, exactly?"

"The amount of times Master Bruce made the very same excuse about pheromones affecting his judgment in the week leading up to his and Mrs. Kyle's wedding." Alfred chuckled slightly, shaking his head. "Simply astounding."

Damian could feel anger flooding up inside him.

"Just what exactly are you implying with tha-"

"I think, Master Damian, that you know as well as I that the pheromones Miss Isley employs lasts for at most a few hours, with their effect being limited to the lady who produced them. Which naturally means that whatever feelings you harbor for the young girl inside that room, are entirely your own. "Alfred spoke over him.

_"-TT-"_ Damian scoffed, frustrated by the butler's ability to be this unbelievably irritating, not to mention right. "You can't stop me from leaving, Pennyworth. I trust _you_ know _that_ as well as I."

Alfred's response to this was to simply raise one threatening eyebrow at Damian. There was no need for further words.

"Okay, fine!" Damian groaned, throwing his arms up in surrender. "You win, whatever! I'll go back inside and _waste_ the rest of the night away keeping her company, are you happy now?!"

"Very good, Sir." Alfred said, as he bowed his head slightly. "Do let me know if I can provide you two with anything, should you need it. I am here at both of your service."

"Aren't you a saint." Damian muttered in response, slouching back inside the room, and closed the door.

Upon entering, his eyes immediately detected rustling movement from the pink mattress on the floor, and he turned on a faint light to inspect it further.

Natsuki was writhing, clearly asleep as evidenced by her closed eyes, but looking anything but calm as she twisted and turned her body beneath the pink covers, a pained expression on her face as she breathed quickly, beads of sweat rolling down her face.

Damian could see her eyes moving wildy beneath the shut eyelids, a clear sign of her having a dream.

Or, more accurately given the soft words she was quietly muttering, a nightmare.

"No... dad, please... stop... don't... don't do that... someone help... help me..."

It didn't take the son of the World's Greatest Detective to be able to figure out what her dream might entail, and what was the cause for her uneasy rest.

Damian sighed.

"It's... okay." He whispered softly, bending his head down towards her, feeling awkward and not a small amount of stupid as he tried to sound soothing. This really wasn't his strong suit. "I'm here. Everything's... alright."

Having not expected this to work, Damian was surprised when he saw her expression soften at hearing his words, her movement stopping.

Then, a small toothy grin stretched along her face as she muttered in her sleep anew.

"Kick his ass... Damian..."

He couldn't help himself. He smirked slightly at hearing these words from her.

Her breathing having normalized by now, Damian got up to get ready for bed himself. If he by Alfred's orders had to be confined in this room for the rest of the night, he might as well get a good night's sleep out of it for once.

He reached his hand towards the light switch, before turning his sight towards Natsuki one last time before plunging the room into darkness again, taking in how calm she looked, sleeping like that, still smiling widely.

Then, he furrowed his brows in confusion at seeing something highly unusual in that smile.

_Is that a... does she have a fang?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> damian: my dad can beat up your dad
> 
> natsuki: oh yeah? well my dad can beat up me!
> 
> damian: ...
> 
> natsuki: and he does!
> 
> damian: ...
> 
> natsuki: regularly!
> 
> damian: are you ok?
> 
> natsuki: no


	12. Battleplan

The alarm blared, and Jon sat upright in his bed at once, already fully awake as he reached for his vibrating phone on the nightstand next to his bed.

With a flick of his finger he quickly put a stop to the intrusive sound he'd set up to ring at this time the day before, yawning and rubbing sleep from his eyes as he did so.

It was way earlier than when he usually got up, but he hadn't exactly slept well tonight anyway, his mind too busy lingering on... unpleasant things. As such, he'd only gotten a few hours of sleep at most.

Before he even began considering getting out of bed or doing anything else at all today, he started off doing what had basically become a ritual for him at this point each time he unlocked his phone: opening up the texting app, tapping the icon of a specific user in his friends list, and typing out a message to her.

JON: good morning! :) how are you today?

He watched the screen intently, as if conjuring up a reply with his mind had become one of his latest superpowers. At last, a small animation was displayed at the bottom of the screen, indicating that the recipient of his text was currently typing out a response.

He hadn't even registered how tense he'd been, before feeling the relief wash over him just over seeing this animation. However she was going to respond, be it good, bad or neutral, it at least meant that she was still capable of writing him back.

_She's still alive._

Jon's heart began beating fast and hard in anticipation despite his best efforts to stay calm, when the animation stopped, and a new message appeared in the chat.

SAYORI: better

Like the other messages he'd received from her since establishing the hourly check-ins yesterday, this one was limited to a single word, but unlike those other messages, this one was the first one she'd sent to even remotely imply that things were looking up.

He smiled to himself, then sobered up as he tried to formulate a suitable reply in his head. The last thing he wanted to do was put pressure on her, so he couldn't be overjoyed and celebratory like he wanted to, but he couldn't just be completely neutral either, and let her think he didn't care. He had to find a balanced way to support her, without being overwhelming.

He began typing again.

JON: really? that's great! how so?

He had to erase the "proud of you!" he'd originally put into the message, fearing that would have been a bit too much for her. He hoped this would get his meaning across well enough.

Another message popped up.

SAYORI: still not great

Jon frowned a bit at this, but let her continue as he could see she was still typing.

SAYORI: evrything still raincloudy

SAYORI: cant feel happy

SAYORI: still want to do that thing you know but not as much? idk to explain sorry

SAYORI: head doesnt hurt anymore so atleast theres that

SAYORI: sorry i know im disapointing

Jon could feel his heart sink slightly at reading these messages, but did his best to focus on the positives as he wrote her back.

JON: hey, hey we talked about this. you don't have to apologize for feeling the way you do. I think it's amazing progress to feel improvement already after only being there for a day!

SAYORI: i guess. yes

JON: so, how is leslie?

SAYORI: really nice. very patient, doesnt rush me. she gave me ice cream yesterday

Jon smiled again, remembering talking to the kind Doctor yesterday when he'd escorted Sayori over to her Clinic. She was indeed one of the nicest women he knew, with a very understanding smile that let anyone know just how much she cared for her patients. He'd known from the minute he'd suggested Leslie that he could entrust her with handling Sayori, it saying something about how trustworthy she was when even Batman had let her know his secret identity.

Jon considered then if this was the right time for him to ask Sayori if he could do what he'd wanted so desperately to do yesterday. On the one hand, he still thought it was a bit soon, but on the other, he was emboldened by Sayori being in a relatively good mood this morning.

He decided to chance it, and typed out another message.

JON: hey would it be okay if I came to visit today? no pressure or anything, just wanted to ask. it's okay if you don't feel ready still.

He waited anxiously as he watched her typing out the reply.

SAYORI: okay

Jon did a fistbump into the air, resisting the urge to loudly exclaim "YES!" in triumph and do flying loop-de-loops around his room. Then, he looked down again to see she had written more.

SAYORI: but please, not anyone else. especially monika. dont want her to see me like this

Jon couldn't agree more, thinking that she really didn't need the stress of multiple people being there at the same time.

JON: sure thing. see you then :)

She didn't reply, but she didn't need to. Jon would text her again in an hour, and then he'd meet up with her later to talk, so there was no reason to put more pressure on her right at this moment.

He sighed, almost tempted enough to lay down again and go back to sleep from the mental exhaustion this simple texting exchange had caused him.

He really hoped he was handling this right.

He felt the phone vibrate in his hand again, and looked down to see that he'd gotten a new message, not from Sayori this time, but rather from Damian, which was a rare sight. Usually it would be Jon taking the initiative to text him out of boredom, and in the few instances where Damian would actually respond, it would typically be brief, sour and impatient replies telling Jon to stop bothering him while he was on a case or something like that.

Curious, Jon opened their chat.

DAMIAN: I need to talk to you. Now.

Jon raised an eyebrow. It certainly looked like something the spiky-haired boy would say in his commanding voice, but usually he would just tell Jon to come to a meeting location at once if he needed him for something. He wondered if this was the case now as well, as he typed out a reply of his own.

JON: you want me to fly to the manor right now?

It only took about two seconds for another text to appear.

DAMIAN: No, I don't want you to "fly" over, whatever that even means. Just videocall me like a normal person, and make sure you're not looking too unusual when you do it.

Jon furrowed his eyebrows, confused by what Damian was talking about. The boy usually preferred speaking to his "allies" face to face, not over some device. What was especially weird was the fact that Damian knew Jon could be there in a few minutes at most, so why would he suddenly insist on this long-distance conversation?

Nevertheless, Jon obeyed, clicking the button to establish a videocall. He thought Damian could be a little better at explaining his plans instead of letting him play the guessing game like this, as he ran his hand through his hair to make himself a bit more presentable when the camera on his phone turned on. Maybe that was what Damian meant by not looking "unusual?"

The call connected, and Jon was met by the intense, green-eyed stare of Damian, seeming to look directly into Jon's eyes as he glared at the camera, with the unmistakable sight of his extravagant room in Wayne Manor visible in the background. Jon had been in that room many times before on sleepovers, so this sight didn't do much to surprise him.

What _was_ surprising however, and caused Jon's eyebrows to shoot upwards in amazement, was the feminine face right next to Damian's, looking slightly down with mild interest at where Jon's face would be located on Damian's phone. She was about the last person Jon would have ever expected to see in Wayne Manor, inside Damian's room, this early in the morning.

 _"Morning, Jon."_ Natsuki's voice greeted him through the phone speakers, before opening her mouth wide to yawn tiredly. Her pink hair was devoid of the usual red ribbons and hourglass hairclip, as well as in a weird state of disarray, looking like she'd just gotten out of bed, which was also evidenced by the general sleepy look on her face.

"Uh... good morning, Natsuki." Jon replied, unsure about how he was supposed to react to this situation. Damian was of no help, continuing looking at the camera with his usual stone face, as if nothing was out of the ordinary whatsoever at the moment.

 _Well, at least that explains why he didn't want me coming over._ He thought, thinking it would probably be tough to explain him arriving so quickly to Natsuki without inventing some alibi of him being some next-door neighbor to Damian. It still did nothing to explain _why_ the two were together, however.

 _"You look so odd without your glasses."_ She said, smiling at him. _"Almost like a completely different person."_

_Uh oh._

A mild panic took hold of him as he realized his face was devoid of the spectacles he usually wore in public, having not expected to suddenly be confronted face to face with a civilian like Natsuki here in his room. He scrambled to come up with a suitable response.

"Same thing could be said about you not wearing your hairclip." He retorted.

 _"Touché. Any news about Sayori?"_ Natsuki asked quickly, her expression shifting into one of worry and concern.

"She's... she says she's feeling a little better." Jon replied hesitatingly, still taken aback by the sight of the two rivals sitting so close together in front of him. This was so _weird._ He would think he was still in bed sleeping, but he didn't think even his dreams could conjure up a scenario _this_ bizarre.

 _"Oh, thank god."_ Natsuki said, and there was a wave of static through the speakers as she breathed a sigh of relief. _"That's so good to hear."_

"So, uh..." Jon began, unsure of how best to bring this up. "What, uh... what's going on with you tw-"

 _"Focus, Kent. We have something to tell you."_ Damian cut him off, ignoring Jon's unfinished question. _"It's about what's been happening at the school lately, specifically at the Club."_

Jon frowned, partly at being cut off by Damian, whom he had a sneaking suspicion was avoiding his question on purpose.

"What's been going on at the Club?" He asked, confused.

 _"Just a fair warning before we start."_ Natsuki piped up. _"This involves talking about Sayori and... what happened to her. Are you okay with that?"_

Jon blinked in surprise. He hadn't been prepared for that.

He hesitated a bit, searching his feelings. While the last thing he wanted to do was reliving that fateful event that had occured last Wednesday, the very thought of it having been enough to make him cry like a baby as recent as yesterday, it... wasn't as bad anymore. Of course he was upset about it, and worried out of his mind for Sayori over at the Clinic, but it was more... manageable, now. He felt like maybe he could talk about it without bursting into tears now, helped along in no small way by the support of his mom, dad, and the text of small improvements from Sayori.

He closed his eyes, and took a deep breath before opening them again, meeting Damian and Natsuki's waiting stares.

"Yes, go ahead." He said. "I'm ready."

 _"Okay."_ Natsuki said, with sincerity visible in her pink eyes. _"This... will probably sound a little crazy to you, but just hear us out, alright?"_

Jon nodded, and listened carefully as she began presenting her case, talking about the odd coincidences of the other girls' personalities changing about the same time as the headaches started. Her main point was Sayori's way too sudden depression, before she went on to Yuri.

 _"You_ did _notice how Yuri acted yesterday, right?"_ Natsuki inquired, raising an eyebrow at Jon.

"Uh..." Jon replied, unsure of how to respond since truth was- he hadn't.

The previous day had gone by like something out of a fever dream. The first day back at school after what had happened, the first day without... her. He hadn't really been able to really focus much on anything at all, apart from the time where he'd been thrust head first into a bush by Damian as he rambled on about Yuri- that wasn't exactly the kind of thing you easily glanced over.

But he'd just chalked that up to Damian being Damian, and hadn't actually taken his claims about Yuri being crazy seriously. Everything else about that day had felt like his body being on autopilot, going through the usual motions, with minimal activity from his mind since everything at the school had just seemed to remind him of Sayori, and her absence. He knew, for example, that they'd been sharing poems yesterday, but he couldn't for the life of him recall what any of them had been about, or how the others had reacted to his.

"I, uh... I may need some pointers." Jon said, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly. "I _do_ vaguelyremember a moment last Wednesday that stood out to me about her. Where she kinda... snapped at you, Natsuki."

 _"Right."_ The girl nodded. _"That was the first thing that made me suspect something was weird at first too, since Yuri, like,_ never _swears. Even at her most disstressed, all you'd typically get out of her is a 'fudge.' It's actually kinda adorable. But then suddenly she drops the hard F-bomb for something I said about Damian of all people? That just doesn't add up."_

"I... suppose." Jon said, unsure. He kept listening as Natsuki continued listing the things that Yuri had apparently said and done the other day, which he had to admit sounded quite out of the ordinary for the admittedly limited amount of things he knew about the purple-haired girl, and she did manage to make a quite convincing argument.

Right up until she lost him by saying what, or rather _who_ she thought was causing this.

"Hold on." Jon interrupted, shaking his head in confusion. "Why would you think _Monika_ is the one doing this?"

 _Not to mention how._ He thought.

 _"Process of elimination."_ Natsuki said. _"I know for a fact it's not me, obviously. I've seen enough from you two to know that neither of you would ever hurt Sayori this way, and Sayori herself being the one doing it is laughable, not to mention impossible since she's at the Clinic and Yuri just keeps getting worse. Monika..."_

There were some sharp popping noises erupting from the phone speakers, and Jon guessed Natsuki was snapping her fingers just out of frame, shaking her head, seemingly trying to find the right words.

 _"...her personality has changed too, I know it. She's gotten the headaches like the others, which I'm_ sure _has something to do with this whole thing. But unlike the others, she doesn't seem like she's... suffering. I don't know how to explain it, I just have this feeling that while Yuri is getting worse and worse, Monika looks like she's... enjoying herself. Like a spider pulling the strings, or something like that. Initially I thought she was poisoning them or drugging their food or something like that."_

 _"Poison, while a possibility, seems unlikely, due to the downright absurd amount of effort she would have to go through in order to mix up the correct chemicals and balancing the exact amount, and all that stuff."_ Damian cut in, taking over for Natsuki. _"I took the liberty of looking up her medical records, and despite her family's best efforts to hide it, I managed to figure out that our Club President has a history with a very mild case of Paranoid Schizophrenia."_

 _"Don't ask him how he figured that one out."_ Natsuki commented, visibly cringing. _"When he told me earlier this morning, it was like he expected me to be all impressed or something, instead of creeped out about how he can apparently hack into confidential records with such ease."_

Jon didn't need to ask, or feign being impressed. He'd seen Damian find _way_ more privacy-violating stuff on that computer of his to even be surprised. He decided instead to just accept it and ask about what this meant.

"Schizophrenia? As in, hearing voices and seeing things?"

 _"Not quite to that extent."_ Damian replied, scowling sideways at Natsuki, probably for undermining his big reveal. _"I meant it when I said 'mild.' All it does, according to her doctor's notes and interviews, is making her view other people as 'out of tune' with the rest of the world, which led to her thinking that nobody else except her is 'real.'"_

"Not... real?" Jon asked, going over Damian's words in his head. It was a strange concept to wrap his head around, and yet he felt shivers traveling down his spine just at the thought.

 _"It's really not that bad."_ Damian shrugged. _"Even she didn't seem to mind it according to the records. I have no idea why her parents tried hiding it so hard. Whatever difficulties she might have had functioning with it, if any, would be eliminated as long as she took her prescribed medicine. But the thing is, I looked into her local pharmacy, and she hasn't been there to pick up her pills for a while, starting right around the time when the Literature Club was established, actually."_

Damian paused, looking at Jon expectantly, as if he was awaiting applause for his detective work. When none came, he scoffed, and went on.

 _"To sum it up, it_ is _conceivable there's another cause for these happenings, like an unknown party doing it from a distance, but for now, Monika is the prime suspect."_

"Okay, but like-" Jon spoke up, rubbing his temples trying to make sense of this overload of information they were feeding him with. It still didn't make sense. "If the Schizophrenia is as mild and unharmful as you say it is, why would you think she's the culprit? I'm sorry, but it just doesn't seem related to any of what you've said has been going on lately."

_"Because it's not. I wouldn't even take it into consideration if not for the fact that the Metagene is known for exacerbating mental conditions present in its host."_

Jon blinked once.

"The Meta-what?"

Damian's face drooped, looking incredibly disappointed with Jon.

 _"Really, Kent? Do you actually not know this?"_ He asked in a tone even more condescending than usually.

Jon blushed.

 _"Don't worry."_ Natsuki said, with a shrewd smile. _"I hadn't ever heard of it either. I think Damian must be a closet cape geek in denial."_

 _He probably thinks I should be one too, due to the life I have._ Jon thought, unable to say anything more about it while in Natsuki's presence.

 _"-TT-"_ Damian scoffed. _"The Metagene, Kent, as you_ should _already know, is a very rare biological abnormality lying dormant deep within the genetic makeup of approximately 12% of the Earth's population. It can be inside a person their entire life without them even knowing, due to the amount of difficulty and effort it takes to spot it, and the extreme conditions you would have to go through to even activate it. IF activated however, it is going to force the host's body through an accelerated evolution process, giving it an unnatural ability it deems best suited for whatever situation they're currently in."_

Jon's head was spinning, trying to take in and understand the lecture Damian was giving him. He realized it was entirely possible that he'd heard of the Metagene before, since he was already starting to forget and tune out what it was. He tried his hardest to concentrate however, knowing this could possibly have something to do with helping Sayori. Damian went on.

_"The reason the Metagene is so widely unknown, can be chalked up to how nearly none of the more popular heroes have it as the source of their powers. Superman and Martian Manhunter are aliens, Flash has the Speedforce, Green Lantern a ring from space. In fact, most of the people who end up with a triggered Metagene end up as villains, because of what I mentioned before. It gives its hosts powers, and wants them to use those powers. Therfore, it will subtly push at its host's subconscious, urging them towards a situation where they might use it. It doesn't care who it hurts in the process, it just wants to be set loose."_

_"Can I just say how much I HATE living in a world where suddenly developing superpowers on the spot is a more likely explanation than poison?"_ Natsuki commented dryly. _"Like, it doesn't even matter what the context is, the fact that we can even find ourselves in this kind of situation is just so ridiculous!"_

"I kinda agree with Natsuki on this one." Jon said, thinking he was starting to get what they were saying now. The pinkhaired girl was surprisingly good at condensing Damian's jargon into something you could actually understand. "It seems a bit out there, if I'm being honest. Like, how can we be sure of this?"

 _"We aren't sure of anything, Kent."_ Damian said, shrugging. _"This is all just a theory based on educated guesswork. What we_ can _be sure of, is that the Metagene is activated by the host going through a highly distressing, usually traumatic event, and I have it from reliable sources that Monika went through just that recently. It does add up."_

 _"Reliable sources..."_ Natsuki mumbled, shaking her head. _"Is this what it's like being rich? Hiring detectives to unravel other people's lives? I don't even get how they would be able to discover something like that!"_

 _"They have their ways."_ Damian said, with a lightly bragging tone that confirmed to Jon without a shadow of a doubt that he was talking about himself in the third person, because of course he was.

"What are we waiting for then?" Jon exclaimed, perhaps a bit too impulsively, but he didn't care. The idea that Monika was behind all of this, torturing his friends unseen, nearly killing Sayori... It made him angry. Angrier than he could remember ever being before. "We need to tell the police immediately! Or call in a superhero!"

_She was Sayori's friend!_

_"Calm down, Kent."_ Damian said. _"Like I said, it's just a theory, and it's entirely likely to be incorrect. We have no proof as of yet."_

Jon thought that usually Damian's guesses and theories were pretty darn on point, but he conceded. He closed his eyes, and took a deep breath, forcing himself to be calm.

"How can we get proof?" He asked.

 _"I have sent over pieces of the girls' DNA to some contacts over at S.T.A.R. Labs for a deep testing."_ Damian said, and Jon didn't even need to hear the bragging tone to know he was lying again to throw Natsuki off their conversation. There was no way Damian would trust anyone but himself to do the research for one of _his_ cases. _"They'll get back to me later today on whether or not one of them has the Metagene in them."_

 _"Can you believe this guy?"_ Natsuki asked Jon, snickering. _"He has actually grabbed tufts of hair from me, and everyone else in the Club without us knowing for his mad science experiments. He's on another freaking level."_

"Uh, right." Jon said, forcing an awkward smile on his face at her lighhearted assumption. If he knew Damian right, it was extremely unlikely that he would stop at hair, and based on past experiences, he knew that it was far more probable of him to take more _liquid_ DNA samples from the girls than simply a few strands of hair. He decided against telling Natsuki this however, not just because it steered into more Robin territory than Damian, but also because it would be so incredibly hard to explain _how_ he'd done it. "Pretty weird Damian, haha."

 _I still have no idea how he managed to get my blood sample without breaking my skin._ He thought, shuddering.

 _"Excuse me, Miss Natsuki?"_ A disembodied, _british_ voice could be heard over the phone, and the girl looked up at someone out of frame, who Jon knew could only be Alfred Pennyworth, Damian's trusty Butler, friend, and father figure. _Second_ father figure, anyway.

 _"What's up?"_ She responded in a casual tone, once again throwing Jon off by how familiar she apparently was with the Wayne Manor setting already.

_What the hell happened yesterday?_

_"It would appear that a certain someone has been by during the night to deliver you a present."_ Alfred said. _"Specifically, the belongings from your previous place of residence."_

Natsuki's face seemed to brighten up.

 _"Seriously?!"_ She exclaimed, overjoyed. _"Awesome! Can you show me?"_

 _"It would be my greatest pleasure."_ Alfred's voice said, kindly. _"If you would follow me..."_

Natsuki got up from the bed, hurriedly waving an arm at Jon as she moved out of frame.

_"Bye Jon! See you at school."_

"See you. Hi Alfred!" Jon replied back.

 _"Ah, Master Kent. I do so hope you'll grace us with your presence again soon."_ Alfred said, recognizing his voice from the many times he'd visited prior.

"I'll see what I can do about that!" Jon said, smiling.

Then, there was a muffled _clunk_ over the speakers, informing Jon that Damian's door had closed behind Alfred and Natsuki, which Jon took as his chance to talk seriously with Damian. He frowned.

"So, what's this traumatic event your 'reliable source' told you Monika has been through?" He asked.

 _"I researched the case yesterday, singlehandedly."_ Damian said, promptly, as if he'd been waiting impatiently for someone to ask him of this. _"And I discovered that she's been in contact with Poison Ivy, and Harley Quinn."_

Jon raised his eyebrows, having not expected this answer. And they went further up in his head as Damian relayed what the two dangerous female lunatics had informed him off.

 _"...so, as you can probably tell, I've been_ very _interested in Monika recently."_ Damian said, finishing his recounting of the events.

"It's... hard to believe." Jon said, furrowing his brows, struggling to keep track of every major reveal he'd been exposed to since he'd called up Damian, from Natsuki being in the Manor to Monika apparently being superhuman. "Especially the part where you singlehandedly took on Poison Ivy and beat her living jungle all by yourself."

 _"It is what it is."_ Damian shrugged. _"No big deal."_

Jon shook his head.

"But Damian... isn't this basically proof? From what Harley told you, and the fact that she was able to escape from the clutches of one of, if not _the_ most powerful woman in your city, how can she _not_ have this Metagene or whatever?"

 _"Quinzel isn't exactly the most trustworthy source of information."_ Damian said. _"And it can still be a plethora of other things going on. Just because things seem to line up as well as they do with Monika, we can't just assume things. Let's wait for the results from the deep scanner to come in today before we start jumping to conclusions."_

"I guess you're right..." Jon sighed. "But it's going to be hard being around her today, having heard your guess of what she might have done to Sayori."

 _"Good."_ Damian replied. _"Use that suspiciousness to keep a closer eye on her at school today. No matter if she's a Meta or not, she certainly warrants more investigation."_

"Alright, I will." Jon nodded. Then, he couldn't help himself anymore.

"Damian, what _is_ going on between you and Natsu-"

 _"I'll see you at school, Kent."_ Damian said, and the screen went blank as he disconnected the call.

Jon sighed. He liked to believe that however awkward he'd been when talking about Sayori at the beginning of this week, at the very least he'd been more mature than Damian was being about Natsuki.

* * *

"Why would you come to school with _her?!"_

"Yuri, please calm down, you're making a sce-"

"Shut the fuck up Natsuki! No one's talking to you! No one's _ever_ fucking talking to you! So just shut up!"

Jon couldn't refrain from flinching at the sound of Yuri's loud, shrill voice, bordering on screaming, audible even without straining his superhearing all the way up to the school roof he'd just landed on.

He thought he could see what Damian had meant now, regarding Yuri's behaviour.

He had found himself in a bit of trouble flying over the schoolyard, seeing the amount of activity going on down there. It seemed the whole school had gathered outside the building, working hard to set up the booths and tents for the festival later this afternoon. He'd known then that he would have to be extra quick to avoid being detected by the increased amount of eyes.

He supposed it was lucky that the warm, sunny summer weather had made its triumphant return after the gray rain of yesterday, now that the students and teachers had to spend most of the day in an outside environment. He hoped Sayori would appreciate the weather from the Clinic, and maybe have her spirits lifted a bit by the lack of what she referred to as "Rainclouds" in the sky. One could hope.

When Jon peered down from his vantage point however, he quickly realized that he had nothing to worry about in terms of being spotted, as everyone's eyes were pointed straight at the tall, purplehaired girl standing in the middle of the yard, uncharacteristically unconcerned with the amount of attention she was gathering as she confronted Damian and Natsuki, both standing side by side.

Jon used his telescopic vision to zoom in on Yuri's face, twisted into an angry sneer as she stared down at the pair with wide, bloodshot eyes, her purple pupils tinier than he'd ever seen them before. Large dark patches under her eyes indicated lack of sleep, a conclusion helped along by the state of disarray her long, purple hair was in.

Her whole body seemed to be shaking in fury as she kept glaring unblinkingly at Natsuki, who at this point stood frozen, overwhelmed by Yuri's verbal assault.

_This is bad._

He could definitely see what Damian was talking about now. This... wasn't the same Yuri he'd met at the start of the week. Not the same by a long shot. This was someone else.

Yuri began yelling again, and he took this opportunity while everyone else were distracted to swiftly run down the wall into his bush.

"You always do this!" Yuri yelled, hysterically. "Every single time I think I've finally found happiness, you have to snatch it away from me! I join a Club that finally seems like it's made for me, and then you join too! I express my thoughts, you make fun of me! My look, my body, my taste, everything I do,you always have to _cut me down!_ And now, you've stolen Damia-"

"I didn't steal anyone!" Natsuki protested, getting red in the face as she yelled back. Jon saw this as his cue to run out of the shadows from the trees towards them. "I'm allowed to walk to school with whoever I want! You don't get to control my social life!"

Jon closed the distance between them, put on his glasses before anyone saw, and stepped between the two girls, facing Yuri. It seemed like he'd been just in time too, as the taller girl had gotten a downright murderous look in her eyes at hearing Natsuki's retort.

"Hey, hey, let's all just calm down." He said, trying to make his voice sound more confident than he felt. "If you all just take a deep breath, I'm sure we can find a peaceful way to resolve this."

"Go away, Jon. This doesn't concern you." Yuri sneered, her expression not softening even a fraction at seeing him. "You don't get to come here and act like you're better than us, because you're not! Did 'taking a deep breath' help Sayori?!"

Yuri's comment hurt harder than a superpowered punch to the gut, and he had to use all of his remaining willpower in order to remember that whatever was affecting her, be it Monika or whoever, she wasn't in control of what she was saying. He couldn't take it personally, hold her responsible, or blame her.

Natsuki, however, apparently didn't have that same level of awareness or self-control.

"What the hell is wrong with you?!" She exclaimed, outraged. "How can you say tha-"

Jon snapped his head back to shush her, knowing she would only make things worse if she kept going. He silently cursed Damian for just standing there, looking at the scene unfold in front of him, without intervening in any way. He might be a genius when it came to detective work and crime fighting, but for social confrontations like this, he was almost completely useless.

"This isn't about that." He said firmly, looking back, directly into Yuri's crazed eyes without blinking, careful not to show weakness like the hurt he was currently feeling. "At all. You're both my friends, and I'd do anything to help you. Whatever this conflict between you and them is about, I'm sure that we can resolve it in a calm, peaceful manner like civilized people. Because screaming and throwing insults won't accomplish anything."

It wasn't normal for Jon to get this passionate and stern while in his Jon Kent persona, but the Superboy jacket he had recently taken to wearing underneath his regular school uniform seemed to act as a sort of talisman for him, making him braver, more confident. Like the knowledge of the S located over his chest somehow connected him to his dad, and let him tap into what _he_ would do to diffuse a tense situation.

He knew wearing his superhero costume was probably a bit on the unnecessarily risky side of things, but... he needed it these days.

There was complete silence for a few seconds as Yuri stared back into his eyes. Then she finally spoke up in a quiet voice, barely above a whisper, shaking from the amount of anger behind it.

"You're taking _her_ side!"

Jon nearly groaned in frustration, but before he could even think up another diplomatic response, a new voice spoke up.

"Guys? What's going on here?"

Jon and the others all looked to the side to see the familiar, white-bowed Club President approach them, once again displaying her uncanny ability to sneak up on them without making any audible noises. Her bright green eyes were scouring over the scene as she frowned in mild concern.

And although objectively she looked as innocent and unthreatening as the school girl student she was, Jon could feel actual shivers traveling down his spine just by her mere presence. Probably a result of the video call he'd had with Damian and Natsuki this morning, but no less valid.

"I want _her_ out of the Club!" Yuri regained her voice, and pointed a trembling finger towards Natsuki, who in turn widened her eyes in surprise, and indignation. "Please make her leave, Monika."

Yuri's voice had something of a childish tone of relief to it, sounding akin to a five year old commanding her mother to kick one of her meanie classmates out of her birthday party.

Monika raised an eyebrow, looking from Yuri to Natsuki, standing by Damian's side, a little behind him, almost like she was trying to hide away. Monika frowned, and furrowed her eyebrows together, looking puzzled and- if Jon wasn't reading her expression completely wrong- was that _irritation_ on her face as she took in the pair?

"Yuri, I can't... throw Natsuki out." Monika said vaguely, sounding like her mind was far away, unconcerned with the disstressed Yuri in front of her as she kept her gaze pointed towards Damian and Natsuki. "You... know that. The minimum amount of members requir-"

"I don't care!" Yuri yelled, her face going red, with tears starting to trickle down from her eyes as she broke down further. "I don't want h- her here! S- she ruins everything, a- and I d- don't like her."

"Gee, thanks." Natsuki muttered.

"You can k- kick her out, Monika..." Yuri pleaded on, ignoring Natsuki's comment. As her sobbing got worse, so did her stammering. She walked closer to Monika, forcing the whitebowed girl to look at her again, stopping as she was right in front of her. "Y- you're the P- President... Y- you can do anything. Please, m- make her leave..."

"Really now." Monika said, shaking her head in a dignified manner, and looking impatiently at Yuri. "We don't have time for this. We have to set up our booth for the Festival, there's a thousand things we need to do before it starts, and I need all hands on deck for-"

"No! Don't let her get away with it again!" Yuri yelled and raised her arm, letting a flat palm fly through the air where it made a sharp impact against Monika's left cheek with a sound like a whip, causing the Club President's head to make a sharp turn to the side.

Jon was speechless, staring in shock at the purplehaired girl, her shoulders going up and down in a slow, steady fashion as she took in deep, shuddering breaths. He had no idea what he should do in a situation this unexpected, and judging from the lack of activity from Natsuki and Damian, neither did they.

Then, Monika slowly turned her head, until her green eyes were making direct contact with Yuri's. Her unyielding stare was colder than Jon had ever seen them before, and a weird, unexplainable sense of dread washed over him, even though the harsh glare wasn't even meant for him.

"You hit me, Yuri?" Monika said, in a low, threatening voice. "Your Club President? After everything I've done for you? Doesn't that make you feel bad? Doesn't that make you feel a sense of _guilt?"_

Yuri released a small whimper, and scratched idly at one of her arms. She lowered her eyes, but Monika kept up her stare, unflinching.

"I would have thought we had reached an understanding of each other that day in the bathroom." Monika kept going, her voice filled with an emotion Jon was familiar with from all the villains he'd fought, but surprised him anyway as it was the first time he'd heard it coming from her; hatred. Pure, complete loathing dripping from every syllable of every word she spoke."I thought we were friends. But apparently..."

"I- I'm sorry." Yuri whispered, scratching her arm more aggressively, as if she was fighting a rash. "Monika, I'm so sorry, I didn't- didn't mean... to..."

Her words were drowned out when she burst into a new fit of inconsolable sobbing, the tears streaming down her face with no apparent end in sight. She finally stopped scratching her arm, raising her hands to hide her anguished face from view. Then, she started swaying on the spot before actually collapsing to her bare knees, unconcerned by the rough contact of asphalt against skin.

"H- how could I d- do such a thing... all m- my fault. Don't deserve to li- I'm s- so sorry... sorry... sorry..."

Jon was appalled by what he was seeing. Monika didn't so much as raise an eyebrow at the pitiful kneeling figure on the ground, instead keeping her iron-like gaze locked on the young woman without blinking at all. She was showing no signs whatsoever of concern, kindness or mercy.

_I have to do something._

Jon couldn't just stand here, watching this take place. What he was witnessing was akin to watching Monika torturing another student. He had to step in, had to stop this before it got any worse!

He turned his head to Damian and Natsuki, the latter of which had her face twisted into a disgusted expression as she watched the scene, an expression that matched pretty well with how he was feeling himself. But the darkhaired boy was looking directly at _him_ instead, his face looking just a bit more sour and grim than usual as he- shook his head?

Jon looked at him in disbelief, hoping that this movement didn't mean what he thought it meant, a hope that was dashed when Damian's lips moved, and with his superhearing picked up the whisper meant for his ears only.

_"Let it happen. Too many eyes."_

He couldn't be serious. He couldn't actually mean that they should just stand here and look on as Monika exerted her powers over Yuri.

"I want you to understand this, Yuri." Monika kept talking, bending her knees, lowering herself to the kneeling girl's level. "Understand that this guilt you're feeling? You deserve it. So embrace it. Learn from it. Maybe then, you'll know not to disrespect me ever again."

Jon clenched his fists. He couldn't stand hearing this. It was so obvious that it was Monika herself who had made Yuri snap like she had, and now she was blaming her for something _she_ had caused? Did she even realize her own hypocrisy, or did she just enjoy seeing people suffering by her hand?

But that wasn't even the worst part. This whole thing with Yuri wasn't even close to the real reason he could feel himself getting angrier than he'd been in a long, long time.

It was the fact that this basically confirmed that it was indeed her who had been behind Sayori's suicide attempt.

In that moment, Jon made his decision, and took a step forward.

_Screw Damian._

"Okay, that's enough." He spoke up in a firm, clear voice with as much authority as he was able. Monika looked at him, surprised. As if she'd forgotten there were anyone else besides her and her victim there. "You've made your point, Monika. I think she gets it now, you can stop."

Jon wasn't stupid. He'd taken care to use vague words, with enough deniability that they could be interpreted as him just telling Monika to stop her scolding, just as much as they could mean to stop her power abuse. He knew that if he outed her as a Meta directly, it was possible that she could react by throwing caution to the wind and endanger everyone present in the yard, so it was important to make the conclusion she would draw from it unclear.

Her hard expression softened as she focused on him, looking like her usual, kind face again.

"Y- you're right." She said, in a shaky voice. "I- I'm sorry, Yuri."

Yuri's response was in the form of a series of sniffs and sobs as she remained there, still kneeling before Monika.

The Club President extended an arm, and after a few seconds of further sniffling, Yuri accepted it, and was pulled to her feet again. Monika clapped her a few times on her back, before turning her head towards Jon and the others, and began addressing them all.

"Okay, everyone. I... I was out of line there, and I'm truly sorry about that. It's just... I think we can all agree this hasn't been a very good week, right?"

Nobody answered her, and discounting the white noise of all the students and teachers around them who seemed to have decided the fewer questions asked about the crying purple-haired girl, the better, the only audible noises came from Yuri's sniffling, shuddering breaths.

Jon in particular kept his mouth shut as he maintained the eyecontact between him and Monika. He was positive that if he tried speaking, all the words from his mouth would be blame and insults to her about Sayori and what she'd done to her.

"Things have been... hectic. We are all a bit stressed out, which is understandable, due to recent events." She went on. "It only makes sense for us all to be a little on edge. I promise you all, I understand these feelings and emotions running through you better than anyone. And I know that I probably haven't been the best leader of the Club during this time. I can definitely do better. You all deserve better."

She released a deep sigh.

"So, how about we all agree to meet up here tomorrow? I know it's a Saturday, but the Staff has entrusted me with keys to the school, and I think it would be good for us all to get together a day without the lessons, homework or festivals hanging over our heads, so we can focus completely on just talking amongst ourselves, discuss what's been bothering us lately, and come up with solutions to how we can fix it and move forward? I'll listen to whatever suggestions you may have, and then maybe we can finally put an end to this dragged out, exhausting nightmare of a week. What do you say?"

"Sounds reasonable." Damian spoke up, surprising both Jon and Natsuki, judging from her expression. Monika nodded at him in confirmation before turning again to smile at Jon.

"Jon, do you think it could be possible to bring Sayori along? It wouldn't really be a Literature Club meeting without her, and her presence here would go a long way in making things go smoothly."

 _Not a chance in hell._ Jon thought, angry at the very suggestion. Him, bringing a fragile and vulnerable Sayori directly to the monster responsible for putting her in the Clinic in the first place? Monika was clearly delusional if she thought he was going to let that happen, and he started opening his mouth to tell her something along those lines.

_"Agree to her terms, Kent."_

Jon snapped his head backwards, staring at Damian in disbelief at what he was whispering. Damian wasn't making eye contact, instead looking down in a casual manner at his shoes, hiding his lip movements.

_"I know what you're thinking, and I promise I'll explain later. But just trust me on this."_

No. Absolutely not. There was no way he could do that. No matter what Damian told him. He would have to be completely insane to even consider the option.

 _"Please."_ Damian whispered.

Jon suppressed a sigh. So, apparently he was insane. Who would have thought.

"I'll try asking her." He said, suppressing a sigh as he looked back towards the waiting brunette. "I won't guarantee anything, though."

"Thank you, Jon." Monika said, sounding truly grateful. "With that cleared out of the way, you guys think we're ready to get to work then?"

She'd snapped back to her usual chipper attitude unsettlingly fast, as if this conversation hadn't just taken place. Then, Yuri spoke up again in a hoarse voice.

"I d- don't want _them_ working together." Yuri said, and pointed towards Natsuki and Damian.

"You _really_ don't get to decide tha-" Natsuki started, but was silenced by Damian holding up his hand.

"Fine." He said. "I trust we can talk about that particular issue at the meeting tomorrow as well?"

"Definitely." Monika nodded. "But for now though, let's all just cooperate to get through today. Okay? Yuri? Jon?"

Both Jon and Yuri nodded slowly and begrudgingly, agreeing. Jon still had his doubts about tomorrow and the thing he'd agreed to, but he decided to give Damian the benefit of the doubt in this case.

Which was usually his first mistake in these types of situations, he'd have to admit.

"Okay, everyone." Monika said, clapping her hands together. "Who wants to help me move the music room's piano into this yard?"

* * *

"Pennyworth just notified me." Damian said importantly, looking at Jon and Natsuki in turn. "The results for her DNA sample is in. Monika is a positive for the Metagene."

"Wow, really?" Natsuki asked, in a very sarcastically surprised tone. "What a revelation that would have been! Y'know, if we hadn't seen her use her powers to mind-melt Yuri just a few hours ago!"

All three of them were gathered inside the Literature Club, having finally managed to slip away from Monika after working hard all day to set up the booth down in the yard. They'd gotten this chance when Yuri had left for the bathroom, leaving Damian unsupervised for the first time today.

Natsuki was sitting slumped over in one of the chairs, over-exerted from all the stuff she'd had to carry down the stairs. Seeing her this exhausted almost made Jon feel a little guilty for not even having broken a sweat despite doing most of the work when helping Damian and Monika relocate the piano.

 _"-TT-"_ Damian scoffed. "It's good to have concrete confirmation on what we're dealing with. Going by that display of seemingly telepathic power down in the yard, she could have been a Martian for all we knew, thus making the problem so much more complicated."

"Whatever." Natsuki groaned. "Now that we know, can we go down and confront her about it? I swear I'm gonna kick her fucking teeth in for what she's done to Yuri."

Despite the incredible animosity present in her voice, Jon found himself actually agreeing with her. Having had to work with Monika, cooperating and even engaging in smalltalk with her for most of the day had been close to intolerable, knowing what she'd done. He wanted nothing more than to finally bring her to justice, and make her rectify her actions.

"That would be a poor idea." Damian said. "There are way too many innocent people present down there, people who could easily get hurt if they get in the way of a confrontation like that. And although we now have a decent idea of what she can do thanks to Yuri, it would still be foolish of us to get more people than necessary involved. Plus, just stopping her won't be enough. If we want to fix what she's done, the best option would be to take her up on her offer, bring Sayori tomorrow, and then _make_ Monika undo the damage she's done to both her, and Yuri."

"I'm not comfortable with bringing Sayori anywhere near her when she can warp reality like we saw." Jon said, finally having the chance to protest Damian's earlier decision.

"From what I saw, she had a very mild ability to manipulate emotions." Damian shrugged. "A bit like telepathy, if even that. No idea where you got reality warping from."

_He calls making Sayori hang herself "mild?"_

"I don't care what it's called." Jon said, angrily. "I don't want her to hurt Sayori more than she already has! And if it is telepathy, then why aren't we calling the heroes right now, before she starts mindcontrolling us?"

"Because she can't do that. Listen to me, Kent." Damian retorted, and Jon had to stifle a groan when he recognized the all too familiar "lecturing" voice he'd now adopted, which always sounded like he was condescendingly explaining something incredibly obvious to a five year old.

"Monika is not a Martian, nor is she a telepath. Not really. She's a girl with a biological abnormality, which adapted her body the best way it knew how, to overcome a particular threat she was facing. Based on my observations, it seems to make her capable of manipulating the emotions of the people around her, technically making her an _Empath,_ but with very clear, and exploitable drawbacks. There seems to be a limited range to how far away she can do it, it causes pain from over-exerting brain activity in both herself and her victims, and, most importantly, it's _slow._ Sayori and Yuri only got to where they are now through extended periods of time spent in her company, as evidenced by when she needed to go to Sayori's home and be with her for an unknown duration in order to get her to the point of suicide. That's why I called it mild. Once you know what you're dealing with, it'll be trivially easy to recognize random head pains and mood swings as being her doing."

Damian finished his self-satisfied lecturing, looking expectantly to Jon, who was trying his hardest to think over the aspects of the shorter boy's argument in order to find holes in it.

"I still don't understand _why_ she's doing this. And I haven't felt anything close to those symptoms since starting here."

"Me neither." Natsuki said, ponderingly. "And I've been in this Club for longer than you two. I was here all the way back when the headaches started, but I haven't felt even a hint of it myself."

"What's her goal in doing this?" Jon asked.

Damian's response was a shrug.

"This can be one of the things we ask her, when we've made her return things to normal tomorrow." He said. "One thing to remember though, is that she's probably not in the best state of mind, so we can't expect her to go about this in a rational manner. The Metagene will do whatever it can to make sure Monika uses it, and will twist her Schizophrenia to the point where it will make whatever delusions she has appear to be 100% real. But due to the limitations that I just mentioned, she should be able to do very little to us or Sayori tomorrow."

"Can you guarantee these theories of yours? Because if there's even a slight chance that she'll be able to turn me against you guys and make me hurt you, then I really think we should contact the League."

"Such a minor confrontation will be a total waste of their precious time." Damian waved him off, which Jon couldn't help getting somewhat frustrated by, feeling that Damian wasn't taking this situation nearly as seriously as he thought he should. "But, if you're so concerned about Monika turning you evil on the spot, just repeat this in your mind:"

And to his surprise, Jon saw the corners of Damian's mouth stretch upwards into one of his trademark vampyric grins before he spoke up again.

"Sixteen ways. No K."

And despite of the whirlwind of feelings inside of him, like anxiousness at being at a school with an Empath as Damian called Monika, frustration and impatience at not being able to do anything about her or help Yuri until tomorrow, and the general fear and unease that had lingered over him since he'd gone to Sayori's house last Wednesday, Jon couldn't help bursting out laughing at Damian's incredibly dark brand of humor.

"God, you two are such dorks."Natsuki said, looking at them from her chair with a look of mild annoyance and incomprehension.

"Sorry." Jon said, still chuckling slightly as he wiped his eyes. "Inside joke."

"Great. It wasn't like I was feeling left out enough before, with you guys geeking out over your cape stuff."

She sighed.

"Sorry, I'm probably being 'toxic' or something like that again. I just... I really don't like the idea of leaving Yuri and Sayori in their current mental states for any longer than they have to."

Jon sobered up again.

"I agree." He said, quietly.

"It's ultimately for the best." Damian said, sounding as close to reassuring as he could probably get.

Jon knew from experience that Damian would lie and twist the truth in a heartbeat if it meant furthering his own agenda, but he hoped, no, _prayed_ that even he would recognize this as being important enough not to mess around. And he really couldn't think of any better ways to go about this.

"We better get back down again." Natsuki said, groaning as she got to her feet again. "Probably shouldn't give Monika any more of an excuse to fry our brains than she already has."

"Yeah." Jon said, moving towards the fridge so he could grab the cupcake trays and carry them down to the booth.

 _Tomorrow._ He reminded himself.

* * *

Jon gathered up his courage, standing on the rooftop of Leslie's Clinic in the middle of Gotham City, before finally making himself jump off, stopping himself in the air right outside the window to Sayori's assigned room.

He'd flown off from the school right before the Festival even started, and he knew Damian and Natsuki had done largely the same, except for the flying part, of course. They'd pretty much been in unspoken agreement after having finished working, that neither of them wanted further company with Monika, all of them (well, him and Natsuki at least) being uncomfortable with the idea of celebrating the festival with the girl they knew they'd have to take down tomorrow. Kind of a moodkiller.

They hadn't seen Yuri since she'd gone away to the bathroom, and Jon hoped she'd shared their sentiment and left early without them noticing.

 _She didn't deserve getting tangled up in this._ He thought. _None of them did._

He squinted at the window, trying to see if he could spot Sayori inside. Of course he'd made sure to text her saying he'd be there soon, to mentally prepare her and not come across as a creep, peeping through her window.

He located her lying flat in the room's blue bed, not asleep, but instead staring blankly up into the ceiling, unmoving and seemingly unaware of his presence.

It looked... unnerving, but he'd given the room a quick listen just to avoid any nasty _surprises_ like last time, and had confirmed her heart was definitely beating.

He gently knocked on her window.

She turned her head, squinting at him. The sun was starting to set behind him, casting its golden rays directly against his back, and he supposed he had to be coming across as a dark silhouette of a flying human to Sayori.

Not exactly the ideal way to present himself, but it wasn't like she knew any other flying people to confuse him with. It was probably fine.

She got out of bed, walking slowly across her room towards the window where she unclasped the hinges and pushed it open. She looked up at Jon's face, letting him see her blue eyes.

"Hey Jon." She said, in a dull voice.

Jon hovered inside, landing lightly on the wood floor. He looked up to meet her gaze and smiled at her, forcing himself not to appear put off by her unenthusiastic greeting.

The red bow on top of her head was easily the most vibrant thing about her. Her face was pale, there were dark patches underneath her eyes which indicated that she, like Yuri, was having trouble sleeping. She was wearing a heavy, maroon scarf around her neck, which despite the warm summer weather outside was adorned with christmas decorations like trees, snowmen and reindeer. It had been Leslie's recommendation to wear it after she'd applied the bandages around Sayori's mutilated neck.

"Hi." He said, and moved towards her, opening his arms to embrace her in a hug. She didn't protest, and even placed her own arms around his back, capturing him in a hug of her own. Definite improvement from yesterday where he'd hugged her right before delivering her at the Clinic and it had been like she hadn't even acknowledged it.

"How are you holding up?" He asked softly, whispering to the side of her head he could see from this position.

"One step at a time, I guess." Sayori replied. Her voice didn't sound completely lifeless anymore, a soft shaking having made itself present inside it. He didn't know if that was an improvement. "Doctor Thompkins is super nice, patient and understanding."

"That's good, isn't it?" Jon asked, breaking the hug to look into her face again. Her expression was neutral.

"Kinda." She said. "I don't know. She's fantastic, but it makes me sad when I think about how I won't be able to repay her by becoming cured. I feel like a leech, sucking up her time and effort without giving anything in return."

"Sayori, we've talked about this." Jon said, taking care to make his voice playful and unserious, keeping anything that could possibly be interpreted as sternness or chastisement out of it. "Not every gesture needs to be repaid in kind. We're just doing this to make you happy."

"I know. The thing is, I don't even know if I can get happy ever again." She said, tilting her head to look down at the ground in shame.

Jon frowned. Then, he decided to take a risk by asking her something.

"Has... has _The Voice_ been talking to you again?"

She flinched at the mention of her unwelcome, disembodied companion. He couldn't blame her. When she'd opened up to him about it on the way over here yesterday, he'd thought it was one of the creepiest things he'd ever heard, to have your own thoughts turn against you like that.

"Constantly. It never stops." She whispered, as if afraid someone would hear her. "Right now it's... it's saying that you've come all this way to visit, and I can't even give a genuine smile to show any kind of improvement. That I've wasted your trip."

"That voice doesn't know what it's talking about then." Jon said, confidently. "It's literally zero effort on my part to come here. There's nothing to waste."

Sayori closed her eyes, a pained expression on her face.

"What's the matter?" Jon exclaimed, worried.

"Please, don't insult it." Sayori groaned, barely audible. "It doesn't like that."

"Sorry." Jon said, feeling guilty as he remembered how she'd told him it would start screaming in her head whenever she tried talking back to it. "But, you really don't have to think that you need to show me steady impovement each time I visit. It's only been a day, and besides, just seeing you being okay makes it worth it."

"So, the way I can repay you for visiting is just, not having killed myself I guess?" Sayori said, bluntly.

Jon suppressed a sigh, and looked away, uncomfortable with how casually she brought up suicide.

"Something like that." He mumbled.

"Wow. That sounds pretty depressing. And I would know."

He looked back at her to see a small smile on her face, but he could tell there was no humor behind it.

"So, uh, anyway..." She transitioned, shifting her body awkwardly. "I'm not really sure how much we can do together here. I was just laying in my bed, trying to think happy thoughts, but that probably won't be that fun for you. I've got a small TV in here, or we could ask Dr. Thompkins for some board games, or..."

"I need to tell you something." Jon blurted out, unable to contain himself any longer. He felt bad about interrupting Sayori and probably ruining what could have been a good evening in her presence, but he felt like she _needed_ to know this as soon as possible.

"Oh. Okay." She said, looking worried. Jon had a feeling that she probably thought he was going to denounce their friendship because he was tired of her or something foolish like that, so he jumped right into it before she could jump to any conclusions.

"Monika has requested that we meet up for a Club Meeting tomorrow, just us, without the other students." He said. " _All_ of us. To discuss 'recent events,' she says."

"Oh." Sayori repeated, blinking. "I'm... I'm not sure I can do that. I mean, I'd do anything for Monika and the Club, but-"

"There's more." Jon said, even as he was actively regretting bringing this up in the first place. Still, it had to be done, and he decided to just get it over with as he began explaining.

He started telling her everything Damian and Natsuki had informed him of. How Yuri was acting strangely and obsessively, naming examples of the things he'd seen her do as recently as today. How her depression had rekindled way too suddenly and extremely for it to have happened by natural means.

He struggled a bit when he got to the part about Monika and the Metagene, finding it difficult to relay what Damian had told him about it, but he think he got the gist of it explained in a somewhat concise and understandable manner, naming the proof and reasons for thinking this was the case.

And all throughout his explanation, although she listened carefully without interrupting him once, he saw her brows furrowing and her frown deepen the more he told her.

"...so yeah, we're pretty sure the meeting is a trap, but we're confident we'll be able to overcome whatever she can throw at us. You don't have to come along, though. I don't care what Damian says, having you confront the person who did this to you sounds like such a terrible ide-"

"It's not Monika." Sayori interrupted him, speaking in a low, but firm voice.

Jon blinked, then regained his composure.

"I know it probably sounds crazy and unlikely, but-"

"But nothing!" Sayori said, a surprising amount of iron in her voice. "It's not her! My problems are my own, not the result of some magical Mega Gene or whatever it's called! They're _my_ issues, _my_ responsibility, and trying to make it something else is just a childish, immature way to have someone to blame for something that's entirely _my_ fault!"

"How can you be so sure?" Jon asked.

"I just know it. Deep down in my gut." Sayori said. "It can't be Monika. She's one of my best friends, and she would never, ever in her life do something this cruel."

"Well, like I said, she has a mental condition, and Damian says the Metagene is known to exacerbate..."

"I don't care!" Sayori yelled, making Jon jump, and hope none of the other patients in the building were alerted by the increased volume, since he was pretty sure Leslie would throw him out of the Clinic on the spot if she caught him disturbing her patient. "You don't know Monika like I do! She's my friend! I love her, and I _know_ she would never do this! I don't know why you're saying this stuff about her, but you should just stop! Stop telling lies about her, because it's not a very nice thing to do, and... and..."

She couldn't finish her sentence, unable to form further words when she burst out crying, half-choked sobs being the only sounds she seemed capable of making.

Aghast and shocked over her outbreak, Jon hurried to embrace her in his arms again, wanting her to know he was there for her, shushing her in what he hoped to be a comforting voice.

"Shhh." He said, trying to hide his fear and unease over not having the slightest idea what to do in this situation. "It's okay, Sayori. It's okay."

They stood there for what felt like hours, just him holding her quietly while she cried into his shoulders. At last, Sayori broke the hug and sniffled a bit before she looked up at him with bloodshot eyes meeting his in a steely gaze, and spoke up in a rasping, but firm voice, sounding more confident and sure of herself than he'd ever heard her be since going to her house.

"I will come along with you to the meeting tomorrow." She said. "To prove to you, and everyone else that there is no possible way it can be her. Because... because if someone as sweet, kind and inspiring as Monika could do something like this? I don't think I'll ever be able to trust another friendship ever again. Including the one I have with you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you once again Kariminal, for your comment on the previous chapter. Don’t worry about not commenting on the prior two or the length of your comments, life comes first after all, and I’m happy with any kind of feedback I can get.  
> Regarding the Sayori thing, I wasn’t planning on covering this in the story, so might as well do it here.  
> The way Monika’s tampering works, is that she takes an emotion someone already has, and then lowers or heightens it, pushing it to the length she wants it to be at. After a while, that push slackens, and the emotion goes back to where it would be before, and everything returns to normal again. Except, if she exaggerates an emotion that came naturally to that person anyway, like, to name an example, the sadness of a very depressed girl, it might cause that girl’s thoughts to spiral downwards, turning the manipulated emotions into her very real emotions, even after Monika’s effects wears off, creating a feedback loop of sorts.  
> Look at it this way:   
> Monika makes Sayori feel worse than she’s ever felt before, effectively removing her ability to feel joy entirely. After the force holding it back wears off, she’ll still need something to spark her happiness again, a difficult thing to do considering she had so little of it beforehand. Not to say she won’t eventually be able to recover it, but it might take her longer than someone like Harley, whose joy was such an integral part of her personality that it bounced right back once Monika’s effect stopped suppressing it.  
> Hope that wasn’t too rambly and makes a semblance of sense. Thank you for following the development of my story!


	13. Interlude V: Under Her Spell

_"Welcome, one and all, and thank you for coming to what I am sure will be another magnificent festival!"_

The principal's voice boomed across the schoolyard, electronically magnified in volume by the microphone she was using to announce her speech to the attendees, easily reaching the rooftop of the school building where _she_ was standing, tall, proud and hitherto unnoticed by the crowd of students and parents below her.

_"I, as well as everyone here at Gotham High, am proud to present what we've all been hard at work on for several days, the students in particular going up and beyond the line of duty in order to ensure that this will be as fantastic and unforgettable an experience as we could possibly wish for! Everyone give a big hand to them for making all of this possible!"_

The sounds of hundreds of hands clapping against each other could be heard, and she couldn't help but smile as she gazed over the excited crowd. It positively warmed her heart to witness this level of community amongst the Gotham Youth.

It truly made her happy to know that even in a city that had faced as much darkness and hardships such as this, the light could still be found in these moments, if one knew where to look for them of course. And she was honored beyond words for the chance to be able to contribute a bit of her own light to the city this evening.

_"Before we move on to all the exciting festivities we'll be participating in tonight, let me just remind you that all profits gained from this event will be going directly to charities dedicated to improve our educational system."_

A mischievous smirk stretched across her face at the thought of what Bruce might say if she was to tell him that she was in _his_ city tonight, spreading her brand of light, hope and positivity instead of the gloomy, dark vengeance he tried so hard to enforce here.

Well, to be fair, he probably knew of this arrangement and what it would entail already. And granted, he would most likely not have much to say about it. He _was_ Bruce after all.

But still, the thought of him silently stewing in annoyance at her for doing this, knowing there was absolutely nothing he could say or do in order to prevent her from coming here, remained a source of great amusement to her. She would make sure to tease him about it at the Watchtower next time they crossed paths.

She shook her head, chuckling silently to herself. In truth, Bruce was a respected and capable member of the League, a worthy warrior deserving of his unofficial title as Knight, and a valued friend. But with the incredibly serious way he went about doing what he did, he lended himself perfectly to comedic purposes as well, something her and her fellow League members loved to exploit. Doing impressions of his gruff, deep voice was a personal favorite of hers.

_"And now, I do believe we're just about ready to greet the Special Guest for tonight..."_

She perked up at the mention of herself, and began readying for her entrance. Despite the relatively minor scale of a school event such as this, she could feel herself actually becoming giddy with excitement at the prospect of meeting and talking to the youth of this school.

She would do her best to leave a good impression upon the next generation of Gothamites, inspire them to be the very best they could, and, if she could, give those who were in need a few words of wisdom, the very same words her mother had granted her during her own childhood.

_"I know the identity of this guest has been a topic of great discussion and theorizing among you all for the last few days..._

She grinned to herself again. The thing was, she knew even the principal was unsure of which hero she was currently promoting, since the League had intentionally kept them in the dark. With their line of work, it was completely impossible to predict when disaster would strike, and which heroes would be caught up in the middle of it, so they'd kept it vague by telling the staff that "one of the original Seven" would attend.

With Kal-El unfortunately being stuck in a galaxy far away attending alien politics, Barry Allen had been the one to initially accept coming here, having plenty of experience with being in public and getting on great with young people. But just hours before now, the speedster had gotten word of a Rogue resurgance in Keystone City, with the likes of Captain Cold and Mirror Master being up to their usual fiendish schemes.

Nothing Barry wouldn't be able to handle himself, but it had been grounds enough for him to cancel his attendance and pass it on to her, something she'd happily accepted. With no word for months from Barbara Ann Minerva, and similar bouts of inactivity from her other enemies, her schedule had been as free as it could get.

_"Well, no reason to waste anyone's time further. I think it's about time for the guest of honor to finally introduce themself to the rest of you!_

That was her cue.

She leapt from the edge of the rooftop, ascending plenty of feet into the air, before turning her body and slowly began to float downwards towards the podium where the principal stood.

A select few of the crow had started to notice her now, gasping and pointing fingers, alerting the ones next to them to her presence in what was akin to a chain reaction.

She smiled. Although not thinking she was deserving of any more praise than the average person (really, her being a demigod didn't mean she was _better_ than anyone), she had to admit she enjoyed the reactions of people when she showed herself publically.

She'd finished her descent to the podium, her red, knee-high boots connecting to the floorboards as lightly as if she'd been a feather, and she felt her dark, curly hair settling itself around her back, being kept out of her face by the golden tiara on her forehead.

The audience as well as the principal was staring at her in awed silence, amazed by her arrival, and... perhaps her attire?

She disliked even humoring this line of thought, but recently the PR agents for the Justice League (all noticably male) had tried to convince her to add a jacket with sleeves over her scarlet corsage with the proud golden eagle across her chest, as well as a pair of long leggings as opposed to the classic blue shorts adorned with the white stars of her adopted country's flag. They'd told her that in this day and age, it could be seen as "provocative," wearing what they referred to as "a swimsuit" when fighting injustice and tyranny.

She'd laughingly rejected their suggestions to her wardrobe. As an Amazon she'd been taught never to be ashamed of her body, and as a rolemodel to women of all ages everywhere, it was important for her to show them that they could dress however they wanted, without fear of judgment.

Men and their priorities. Who honestly cared how she dressed as long as she continued her duty to protect humanity from evil? And if the sight of her bare legs excited, or, Zeus forbid, _provoked_ a small select few of the population that much, so what?

She liked wearing the outfit, she looked _damn_ good in it, and she was perfectly aware of that fact. That was good enough for her, so it should be good enough for them.

Reaching out with a silver bracelet-adorned arm to accept the microphone handed to her by the speechless principal, she turned to face the crowd of people looking up at her in disbelief. Not unused to addressing a large number of people, she nevertheless grabbed hold of the hot, smooth texture of the everglowing Golden Perfect hanging from her waist, letting the warmth of its magic comfort her as she flashed a bright smile to the crowd.

She'd left behind her sword and shield at home, not wanting to encourage anyone to bring weapons to school, no matter how medieval they might be. And aside from that, she wanted to present a more classic version of herself, from the days where all she'd needed was the Perfect and the bracelets. A simpler time, which she thought the younger children and maybe even a few of the adults would be able to recognize and appreciate.

She addressed the crowd.

"Greetings, everyone." She said, letting the microphone augment her voice for all to hear. "My name is Diana of Themyscira. But you may know me better as Wonder Woman."

 _This is going to be fun!_ She thought, as the crowd cheered.

* * *

The sun had at long last set fully over the horizon, and twilight reigned over the schoolyard as the crowd of tired students, weary parents and the few odd bystanders joining to see the celebrity superhero in their town, began to disperse. The paparazzi however, remained outside the school borders, snapping flashy pictures from afar, not going to give up this prime opportunity to get as much material for their newspapers and magazines as they could possibly get.

Diana didn't mind this, but had made it abundantly clear to them that she would not be giving any interviews tonight, having dedicated herself entirely for the students to talk to like a person, and not some actress promoting her favorite brand of shampoo to some trashy paper.

As an extra security measure, she'd also stated to the vulture-like reporters that should she see even one of them step inside the yard, there'd be hell to pay. And while normally threats like that bounced off these people more effectively than bullets against her bracelets of amazonian steel, they seemed to carry a bit more weight when spoken from the woman who'd been well documented being able to hold her own and even triumph against the literal God of War, Ares.

They'd stayed obediantly behind the school gates after that, snapping their cameras from afar, giving Diana all the space she could possible want to move between the students, greeting and conversing with everyone who might wish to, telling stories of her adventures and battles to the younger ones, and displaying her power given to her by the Gods in the form of flying around the area with a few of the ones who'd looked like they could use a pick-me-up.

She smiled. Today had been a good day, and she'd loved every single second of it.

While officially, she'd only been required to stay here for an hour at most, she'd been present throughout the whole festival, partaking in their feast of greasy grill-food, participating in the games and competitions they'd engaged in, and in general just walking amongst them to make sure everyone were enjoying themselves. She doubted Barry would have committed himself to staying for this long, had he been able to attend.

In truth, she did feel a bit guilty for not having left. She knew her love, Steve Trevor, had prepared for them to have a romantic dinner this evening in the small cottage he'd built for her by the beach, and she'd now overstayed the time she'd informed him she'd be back, by several hours.

But still, he got to see her almost every day, certainly the most of any human on Earth, being her lover. He'd have to endure these people getting to see her a bit more than expected, just for today. And besides, it wasn't like he was unused to delays. With her being one of the most powerful superheroines on the planet, and him being a busy soldier regularly sent on impromptu secret missions for A.R.G.U.S., unannounced delays and cancellations were natural and even somewhat expected when they set up dates.

Even still, now that the amount of people in the yard could be counted with two hands, she did suppose she should start getting a move on and fly off. She had just one more stop to make here in Gotham, something she'd decided to do after she learned the source of the Festival's initial delay from yesterday, and then she would be well on her way to make up for her delay by showing Steve the night of his life...

All in all, a very good evening spent. Well, maybe the music had been a tad too loud. She hadn't noticed anything during the Festival, but she thought she could feel the vague beginnings of a headache starting to make itself known now. But it wasn't really that bad, just a minor grievance. She motioned to fly away, looking towards the night sky, and...

"Excuse me? Miss Wonder Woman?"

Diana turned her head to look down into a pair of very bright, very green eyes belonging to a female student she hadn't even heard approaching.

She could tell the girl was a student, given the school uniform she'd observed everyone else were wearing here. While Diana wasn't really a fan of mandatory uniform rules at educational institutions, she'd have to commend this girl for making her appearance fairly unique despite that, in the form of a white bow at the back of her head, separating her light brown hair into a ponytail so long it would make Artemis of Bana-Mighdall proud.

She found it odd how she hadn't noticed this girl in the crowd before. In the hours she'd been here, Diana was pretty certain she'd gotten to meet close to everyone here, and thought that she would remember seeing this girl had she been present in the crowd.

Nevertheless, she made sure to smile pleasantly at the young girl, knowing people sometimes had a hard time gathering their courage to talk to her, and wanting to present herself as being as approachable as possible.

"Please, call me Diana." She told the girl in greeting. "How may I help you?"

"Sorry." The student said, smiling. "I know you probably have a million better things to do, and I should have come sooner, but it's just... you were always surrounded by so many people, and I couldn't seem to find the right moment. I understand if you need to go away now though, and don't have any time left. I've just been a big fan of you most of my life, and wanted to say hi before you left."

"I am honoured, child, but you needn't worry." Diana said, bending down a bit to be more at an eye level with the girl. Being an Amazon, she often found herself towering over nearly everyone in Man's World with her height. "I always have the time to talk to my admirers. What might your name be?"

"Oh, sorry, I forgot to introduce myself." The girl said, blushing. "I'm Monika."

"A pretty name." Diana said.

"Thanks." Monika said, blushing deeper. "And... thank you for all you've done. You've been such an inspiration to me for as long as I can remember. You're amazing, not just because of your powers, but the way you just seem to emit authority and respect wherever you go. You were the first female superhero, appearing at a time where such things were unheard of! It was through watching and listening to you mostly that I gained the confidence to think that maybe I could be good enough to achieve my dreams. It was thanks to you that I started pushing myself to the best I could be. And through mirroring your attitude, I now have a place on the student council, my grades are the best they've ever been, I started my own Club, and I'm even practicing piano! I mean, I know I'll never be on your level since I'm not as strong, brave or beautiful as you, but-"

Monika stopped her excited talking mid sentence, and blushed deeper than she had before, breaking eye contact with Diana to look down at her white, pink-tipped shoes.

"Sorry." She mumbled quietly. "I tend to ramble when I get nervous. You probably hear this all the time, and I'm just being annoying."

"Nonsense." Diana said again, meaning it. This was what it was all about. This easily made all the hardships, all the tragedy she'd faced since entering Man's World worth it. To hear that she, through her actions, had inspired a young girl to follow and achieve her dreams? It warmed her heart to hear she'd made such a positive impact in the minds of others, and she would never, ever in her immortal life get tired of hearing it.

"You have no reason to be nervous, child. I am overjoyed and flattered that I've been able to help you so much, even indirectly." She said, and gently reached out to place a comforting hand on Monika's shoulder. The green-eyed girl raised her head at her touch, looking in sheer amazement at Diana. "But you mustn't forget to give yourself credit too. I can tell you right now, with absolute certainty, that although I have abilities granted to me by the Gods of Olympus, that in no way makes me a superior person to yourself. It's what's on the inside, and what you do that defines you, Monika. When I look at you, I see a sweet, talented young woman, just as unique, special and beautiful as I."

Monika smiled so brightly she almost glowed in the dim twilight, clearly overjoyed beyond words at hearing Diana's speech. Diana could feel her own mood brighten just at seeing that childlike wonder in her eyes.

"Oh, I don't know about just as beautiful." Monika said, in a quiet voice, as she eyed Diana up and down. "I don't think I could pull off wearing that outfit."

They both shared a hearty laugh at this, after which Diana made sure to tell her not to sell herself short, and that she could "pull off" any outfit she wanted. She knew Monika's comment had clearly been meant as a jest, but it didn't hurt to help reinforce just a bit of positive body image in her all the same.

Monika thanked her politely, then looked off to her side, a distinct expression of sheepishness on her face.

"Something troubling you?" Diana asked.

"A bit." Monika replied, and looked back at her, smiling apologetically. "This is... kinda embarrasing, to be honest. But I wanted to ask if you could help me with something. You don't have to, of course, you've done more than enough just by being here. But it won't take long, and it would really be a big help."

Diana smiled.

"State your request, and I shall see what I can do." She said, and Monika's smile widened.

Diana noted that the slight pain in her head had seemed to increase ever so slightly, but she brushed it off. It was still more than manageable, and certainly nothing that would stop her from helping this girl with whatever she needed.

Monika motioned for Diana to follow her, and they made their way over to what looked like a jet-black piano, standing a bit to the side of the yard.

"Me and my Club members carried this down here from the music room for the Festival." Monika explained, pointing at the intrument. "But they all left, and now it needs to be returned to its place again. It's a long way up, through many stairs, and, well, I'm not exactly imbued with the strength of Hercules. I don't suppose maybe you could...?"

She left the question unfinished as if ashamed with herself for having the audacity to ask Diana for help. In that moment, Diana felt a sudden, strong surge of loyalty for the young student before her.

 _I'd go to wars with the nations of the world and win them singlehandedly for this girl._ She thought.

She blinked, confused, and the feeling swiftly evaporated as fast as it had come. Where _had_ that come from? Sure, she liked and appreciated Monika greatly, but it shouldn't be greater than the love she felt for all living beings on this Earth. To go to that extent for someone she'd only just met?

She cast those odd thoughts from her mind, focusing on the task at hand. Of course she could help Monika with her problem, she would do that for any one of the students here if they asked. She would be a bit more delayed than she already was as a result, but she was sure Steve would understand.

"A noble quest." She said, winking at Monika, who giggled. "I shall of course accept."

"Wow, really?" Monika said, her voice grateful. "You really _are_ Wonder Woman!"

Diana unclasped the Perfect from its position by her side, and with a few swift movements she'd wrapped its glowing lenghts tightly and securely around the piano. She then grasped the end of the golden rope, lifting the large instrument up onto her back, its weight barely even registering to her due to the gift of enhanced strength granted to her by the Goddess Demeter herself.

"Lead the way, Child." Diana said, ready to venture inside with the piano.

"I'll guide you from behind." Monika said. "That way I can warn if the piano is close to bumping against something.

Diana nodded, and started walking towards the front doors of the building.

After a bit of tricky maneuvering on her part to get the piano unscathed through the opening, Diana found herself inside the deserted hallway, looking at the great many rows of student cabinets assembled in rows by the walls on either side. After getting instructions from Monika on where to go, she dutifully kept moving.

To her great regret however, the pain in her head didn't seem to want to let up, which was puzzling, to say the least. She'd been in far more straining situations than what a musical display from a couple of schoolchildren could achieve, and hadn't suffered this much of an headache then.

She decided to look into it at a later time, and hope it didn't increase any further. In an attempt to get her mind off it, she tried making smalltalk with the girl walking behind her.

"I don't think I heard anyone play this piano back at the festival." She said, wondering why the girl had gone through the effort of carrying the intrument down into the yard if no one was even going to use it.

"You didn't." Monika answered pleasantly, from behind Diana. "I was supposed to sing a song I've been working on, but the crowd got to me, and I chickened out."

Diana wished she was able to look at Monika, feeling this wasn't a very personal way to chat with her correspondent, but understood it would be way too troublesome to turn around with this burden on her back each time the girl spoke up.

"I am sorry to hear that." She opted to say instead. "I am sure you have a lovely singing voice."

"Eh, it's fine." Monika said, casually. "It was a work in progress anyway, and maybe it was even for the best, since I'm not that skilled yet. I probably would have just embarrassed myself by trying."

"You'll forgive me for sounding 'cliché,' for just a moment, but if you never try, you'll never know." Diana said.

"True." Monika agreed. "I think I would have gone through with it though, had my friends been present tonight instead of abandoning me like they did. It's just this way up the stairs a bit, by the way!"

There was no hint of anger or hidden animosity in Monika's tone when she spoke about her friends, which didn't quite fit in with her word choices. Diana decided to dig a little further into that as she started her climb up the narrow staircase Monika had pointed out.

"Do you have any idea why they would do such a thing?" She inquired.

"Oh, absolutely." Monika replied, sounding downright cheerful now for some reason. "They've all been through a lot, so I don't exactly blame them. You see, two boys joined our Club at the beginning of the week, and of course that led to a bit of conflict between us all. I'm sure you know how girls can get. So naturally, things have been a little rocky between us since then."

A wave of sympathy crashed over Diana, as well as a downright overwhelming sense of... _love,_ for Monika. This was no where near how she usually felt about strangers she'd just met. Her being a superhero, of course she felt an instinct to protect everyone she came across from harm's way, but this was more akin to how she guessed she would feel about her own child, should she ever decide to get one. She wanted to embrace Monika into her arms, stand by her side forever and always, keeping her safe from any and all dangers, never letting her leave her sight.

She found that she now harbored a strong resentment for those people Monika called her friends. How could they be that, when they had let her down like that? Clearly, they weren't worthy of Monika's friendship, her trust, her love. If she'd let her, Diana would within a heartbeat take her to her hidden home island of Themyscira, where she would learn that the loyalty of her Amazon sisters would be way better company for her. Man's World was certainly no place for someone as pure as Monika, someone who needed to be protected at all costs!

Diana stopped up abruptly on one of the stair steps, shaking her head, as she tightened her grip around the warm, glowing end of The Perfect.

 _What's... going on? Why would I think those things?_ She thought, bewildered.

The barely coherent, rambling thoughts had left her head, just like they had back down in the yard a few minutes ago, her exaggerated feelings for the student behind her disappearing the second they'd arrived.

The same could unfortunately not be said about the pain in her head, which had definitely increased. It was actually starting to legitimately hurt her now, instead of just being a minor throbbing.

_Am I getting sick? Can I even get sick?_

"Something wrong?" Monika asked curiously from behind her.

 _Pull yourself together, Diana!_ She thought, angry with herself. _Just get this task done, and you can look into this phenomenon more. And try not to fall in love with the high school girl while you're at it!_

"I am... fine." She said, hesitantly. "Just feeling a bit of a migraine coming on, but it is of no issue."

"Yeah, that's been going around the school for a bit." Monika said, sounding sympathetic. "I blame the loudness of the Music Club, no respect for their surroundings, honestly. Can I offer you an aspirin to take the top off?"

"No, thanks." Diana politely declined the offer, having no real faith or trust to medicine not produced by the Healers on Themyscira, and forced herself to move further up the staircase, desperate for a distraction from her pain. "You were telling me about boys joining your Club?"

"Right!" Monika said, her voice enthusiastic as she got the chance to continue speaking. "First, you gotta understand that they're all a little messed up at the Literature Club. Like, instead of actual people, think of them more like a collection of character flaws bundled together in the shape of a person. Take Natsuki, for example. She bakes the sweetest, most delicious cupcakes you've ever tasted, but doesn't have any friends since she pushes everyone away with an absolutely _rotten_ personality. I can hardly even stand being in the same room as her for longer than a minute. A total bitch."

 _Sounds like a nuisance._ Diana thought, then wondered why on Earth she would think that. She hadn't ever met this Natsuki, and she never made such judgments on other people based on the word of others.

She was also starting to think she'd been mistaken in her evalution of Monika, particularly in regard to how kindhearted she'd seemed at first, if _this_ was how she spoke about her friends. But then again, was she herself one to talk? Hadn't she just seconds before, however brief and fleeting it had been, agreed with Monika's judgment? Was she just as bad a person?

Her good mood dropped considerably as she thought about this troubling prospect, and Monika went on, uninterrupted.

"So, Natsuki, in a surprising twist, seems to have managed to catch the interest of one of the boys. Don't ask me how, because frankly I'm stumped as to how anyone could see romantic potential in that one. I mean, as if her toxic mannerisms wasn't enough, she's so small and underdeveloped that she looks 13 years old or something like that. If nothing else, it makes whoever's dating her look creepy, y'know?"

Monika giggled, and Diana could feel herself getting more and more off-put by what the girl seemed to find entertaining. She kept her mouth shut however, wanting to give her the benefit of the doubt, and the chance to redeem herself. Kids these days _did_ admittedly talk in a much more harsh way here on Man's World than on her birth island, and perhaps she was just being old-fashioned.

"But anyway, this caused some drama, as the boy Natsuki caught was the same one that's been in Yuri's sight for quite a while now." Monika continued. "And boy, let me tell you about Yuri. Arguably just as bad as Natsuki, but in a different way. Wonders why she can't get guys to like her when she's like the textbook definition of a red flag for relationships. At first glance she just seems like a shy girl who never learned to socialize, but really, she's like the craziest person at this whole school. I saw her leave before the Festival even started to cut her arms open in the bathroom, and I haven't seen her since. She's probably still in there!"

 _Wouldn't want to encounter her._ Diana thought, at first disgusted with the sound of this Yuri, but that disgust swiftly turned around to be pointed at herself, instead.

What was wrong with her? This girl sounded like she was in need of immediate help, not judgment.

She was horrified by these strange, intense feelings of negativity flashing through her. It didn't help how brief or fleeting they were, she'd never thought herself even capable of judging strangers in such a hateful regard. She'd always thought that was a feature exclusive to the population (especially the men) of Man's World, and not the supposed Champion and Princess of the Amazons, the Agent and Advocate of Peace, and all the other titles assigned to her through the years.

Had she spent too long being surrounded by the people here, getting infected by their way of thinking? Why was this happening to her?

"Is- is she okay?" Diana managed to ask, speaking through the now intense bouts of pain her head was riddled with. "Does anyone who can help her know about this?"

"Probably not!" Came Monika's amused voice from behind. "Who wants to confront the psycho wielding a knife in the bathroom after all, am I right?"

 _The only one here I've seen deserving the title of "psychopath" would be yourself, girl._ Diana thought, gritting her teeth in anger at Monika's uncaring tone. _And... possibly myself, if I keep getting these unwarranted feelings._

She was aware of the types of people who lived in Bruce's City, of course, having personally fought a few of them. But even she hadn't expected the school girls of this forsaken city to already be as crazed as someone like The Riddler or Two-Face.

Diana vowed to herself that the moment she was done carrying this instrument to its desired location, she'd immediately make her way to the bathroom, see to it that Yuri was okay, and attempt to talk her through whatever troubles she might have. Next, she'd have to confront the Principal about Monika's attitude towards the members of her Club, since she very much doubted the kind of behaviour she was exhibiting was accepted at this school.

She staggered a bit on the stair steps, her surroundings blurring and spinning around her dizzyingly with the enormous headache pounding against her skull. Squinting, she thought she could see the stairs end at a hallway, just a few more steps. Despite the overwhelming pain, she found herself wondering why the music room was located this far up in the building.

Monika spoke up again.

"But worst of all of them is _easily_ Sayori." Monika's voice had twisted away from its cheerful tones, replaced by pure, snarling contempt. She wasn't even trying to hide her disdain anymore. "She got everyone to care for her. Even the best of the two boys, despite having no talents, no smarts, nothing to offer him whatsoever. Nothing except some big, crying puppydog eyes and a stupid bow. And you know, the really annoying thing about her is that even though she gets everyone's love, support and everything she could ever want without trying, of course she has to have a crippling depression! So she has the greatest life and the greatest boy, and she still won't stop crying about how 'tough' her _fucking_ life is!"

Diana could hardly think straight as she finally climbed the final stair step, staggering into the long hallway. The room was swimming around her, and she could only just hear Monika's raised voice from the thunderous pain in her head, deafening nearly everything around her.

"She'll end up getting the happy ending, and I'll be left behind in the dust since Jon still insists on being infatuated with her! A problem I thought I'd solved when I made her hang herself!"

_Good riddance._

"Great Hera!" Diana gasped, horrorstruck, her eyes bursting wide open. Her grip on The Perfect slipped, and the great piano strung around her back, collapsed onto the hallway floor with a deafening crash.

Slowly, she turned her head to look at the student behind her, feeling equal parts scared, and enraged as the thing she'd just heard sunk in.

"What... did you just say?" She asked, slowly.

Monika hardly looked any better than how Diana currently felt. She could barely even stand upright, leaning up heavily against the stair railing by the end of the hallway. Her body was bent, shaking all over as if she was going through an even greater pain than Diana was, but her head was raised high, face drenched in sweat visible even from this distance, with wide, green eyes staring unflinchingly at Diana, not blinking once.

And despite the effort she was clearly going through, Monika was smiling widely.

"It didn't work, though." The brownhaired student said through clenched teeth as she kept up her intense stare. "Jon of course had to save her, and now he won't tell me where she's kept so I can go finish her off once and for all!"

Another rogue thought fueled by unwanted hate flashed through Diana's mind, and she screamed like a wounded animal, grasping her head which felt like it was splitting in two. She'd heard about Sayori before.

When the Hall of Justice had received word of the Festival's delay, Barry had informed her of the tragic reasoning behind it, told her of the young orphan who'd made an attempt on her own life. She remembered how saddened she'd been, the same feeling she always had when hearing about the disturbing, senseless loss of human life, and when it had been decided she would be attending the Festival in Barry's place, she'd promised herself that she'd go to the clinic the girl resided at afterwards, and try to lift her spirit, loathing the idea that she would miss the joys of the festivities.

And now, at this moment, the only thoughts in her mind for the girl she'd felt such sympathy for, were being replaced by how best she could aid the girl's would-be killer, Monika, in completing the murder.

Diana knew herself well enough to know these feelings weren't her own. That she would never, in her life, be able to feel such things, unless they were forced upon her by some unnatural force, or power.

And with Monika being the only other being in her near vicinity, whose very stare seemed to increase the ferocity of the thoughts that weren't hers in her head, it didn't take much to guess who this unnatural power belonged to.

Diana bent down, grasping the fallen Perfect and untangled it from the piano lying on the floor in one swift notion. As she felt the warm texture of the rope against her fingertips once more, her mind seemed to clear. It still hurt worse than the pits of Tartarus itself, but the violent feelings subsided.

Well, the violent feelings towards _Sayori_ was gone. She was still undecided on Monika.

The pain had reached an all-time high now, but Diana couldn't waste time on that right now. She was a warrior, and as such it was her duty to put a stop to Monika before she hurt more people, or worse, made _her_ hurt them in her stead. She stood tall, meeting that green gaze defiantly as she pushed past the hurt, ignoring it to focus on her mission.

She was Princess Diana, of Themyscira. Her thoughts and feelings were her own, not playthings for others. She would not have her will bent to this girl.

Monika's smile disappeared, replaced by an expression of fear as she continued looking on.

Diana released a war cry, and charged the white-bowed student.

Monika barely had the chance to utter a surprised "what-" before Diana had closed the distance between them, grasped her roughly by her uniform's collar and lifted her whole body high up into the air with one arm, exerting nearly none of her strength to do so.

Diana gazed harshly into Monika's shocked face, now at a direct eyelevel with her own.

"What is happening?!" Diana demanded, using the voice usually reserved for when she interrogated her enemies, devoid of warmth or kindness to show she wasn't to be taken lightly. "What _are_ you? A minion of Circe, sent to destroy me from within? Why are you doing this?"

Monika was squirming uselessly against Diana's steely grip, lifting her own arms to scratch at the hand holding her in a desperate attempt to escape. With the durability of Diana's skin however, Monika would probably sooner file her nails down to nothing before she managed to make any visible damage.

"I- I don't understand!" The student exclaimed in a panicked tone, her eyes darting from seemingly random points on and around Diana's body, as if seeing something that wasn't there. "H- how are you doing this? All your Sliders are going back to where they were before, faster than I've ever seen! What the hell is wrong with you?!"

 _Sliders?_ Diana thought, confused as she struggled to understand what on Earth she was talking about. It seemed to her that Monika was speaking more to herself than answering the questions

"Quit speaking nonsense!" She yelled, shaking Monika slightly to make her focus on the current situation. "Answer me, or I'll _make_ you talk!"

She lifted her hand threateningly, showing the golden, glowing rope to Monika. The Perfect was always a last resort in interrogation, since everyone deserved the chance to speak the truth by their own free will and accord, instead of it being taken by force from their mouths.

"This isn't how it's supposed to happen!" Monika yelled angrily, kicking out against Diana's body with her dangling legs. "Let go of me, and stop resetting your Sliders! You're _cheating!"_

Her voice was highpitched and hysterical, like an angry five year old throwing a tantrum. Diana furrowed her brows.

"This is your last chance." She said, fully prepared to wrap Monika up in The Perfect unless she spoke up. " _How_ are you getting access to my feelings? _Why_ manipulate me to feel that way about your Club members? _What_ were you hoping to accomplish? What is your endgame here?"

Monika looked directly into Diana's eyes, her face twisting into one of such anger and loathing that it hardly even looked human anymore.

"I am trying to make you _mine!"_ She screamed at the top of her lungs, flecks of spit flung from her mouth, colliding against Diana's face.

Diana cast a dignified look into those wide, desperate green eyes, recognizing the look of madness within, and raised The Perfect. For this case, she had no other option to get the answers she was looking for. Monika's scream got louder.

But just when The Perfect was inches away from making contact with Monika's skin, something unforeseen happened. As the student's scream actually got louder still, her eyes started glowing, erupting into a cascade of bright, green shimmering light, so strong they easily illuminated the entirety of the dark hallway, blinding Diana momentarily.

" _STOP!_ " Monika screamed, soon joined by Diana, whose head at that very moment felt like it was split wide open.

The pain was so great, intense and unexpected that she recoiled away, losing her grip on both Monika and The Perfect, letting both drop to the floor.

She was about to lift her hands to her head, to check if her head could possibly still be physically unscatched despite this unbearable, indescripable, all-consuming pain...

_Stop._

But... neither of her arms moved. She tried again, willing her arms to raise from their position at her side...

_Stop._

...to no avail, as they remained limp. She tried taking a step...

_Stop._

...tried walking, speaking, flying, wiggling a toe or a finger, moving her body at all...!

_Stop._

She... couldn't. All she was able to do was stand there frozen, trapped in her own body with the worst pain she'd ever experienced still lingering in her head. She could breathe, and move her eyes to look around the dark hallway, but if she tried to move as much as a muscle...

_Stop._

"Ugh..." A grunt said from beneath her, and Diana moved her eyes as far down as they could reach, seeing Monika slowly get to her feet again after having been dropped. Grasping her head, she slowly opened her eyes to shoot a dazed look at Diana, a faint, green afterglow still present in them, casting their ghostly light in her face.

Dianas heart started beating faster as the realization of her being completely immobilized in the company of a known enemy became clear to her. She tried again in a desperate attempt to open her mouth...

_Stop._

...Without success.

"Gah, that's brisk!" Monika exclaimed, staggering on the spot before leaning up heavily against the wall, a strained expression on her face. " _So_ much worse than the Sliders! Ugh, I'm probably going to be feeling this all night!"

Diana could only look on as the student lifted her arms to massage her temples gingerly. If she had to hazard a guess, it seemed like the student was experiencing roughly the same pain in her head that she currently had.

Only difference between them being that _she_ was capable of movement.

"Well..." Monika spoke up again, slowly lifting her head to inspect Diana's paralyzed state. " _This_ is certainly new."

With a grunt of effort, the girl pushed herself off the wall, approaching Diana, who wanted to yell at her to step back, wanted to push her against the floor, tie her up with The Perfect and deliver her to the authorities to face justice. But instead...

_Stop._

...she merely stood where she was.

Monika cautiously lifted her hand, waving it directly in Diana's face, snapping her fingers intrusively. It was incredibly annoying, but she was powerless to stop her, even as the girl grew braver and started poking at her cheeks with long, cold fingers.

At last, Monika retreated, smiling at Diana in apparent amazement.

"You had me worried for a minute there. That was some Boss Fight!" She giggled lightly. "I got really scared when I saw the Compassion I was trying to lower for Sayori fill itself again. Then, when I noticed all the other Sliders I'd lowered and raised throughout the evening had returned to their prior settings, I thought I was done for!"

Diana didn't understand the words coming out of the girl's mouth, but she knew they couldn't be good.

"I wonder what that was." Monika continued, lifting a hand to her chin, looking curious. "You have this green 'STOP' word floating over your head, and that was the last thing I remember thinking before... _this..._ happened. I'm guessing that has something to do with your current state. You can't move at all, can you?"

Diana's silence spoke volumes. She needed to find a way out of this, fight her way out of this somehow, come up with something...

_Stop._

"Okay, tell you what." Monika said as she bent her head to one side until a low _crack_ could be heard. "I'm going to try to do the thing again. If you can, I'd suggest you brace yourself."

Monika's brows furrowed as she looked into Diana's eyes with a look of total concentration on her face, saying nothing. The staring contest went on for about five minutes without anything happened.

Then, Monika's eyes erupted into sharp, emerald light, once again.

 _"Lift your right arm."_ Monika said in a strange, echoing tone, and Diana's head, still aching in pain from the previous pain, was split open once again, and filled up with burning coals for good measure. She would scream, had she been capable of opening her mouth, but it seemed Monika had that part covered.

While the world around Diana was muffled from the intensity of the pain, she was still able to hear Monika's highpitched squealing as she collapsed to the floor once again. Perhaps Diana would have found some sense of satisfaction from seeing her enemy suffering like this, if she wasn't going through the very same pain herself, and the fact that she wasn't sadistic.

She stood like that for what felt like hours, silently accepting the pain filling her brain, while Monika lay beside her, meekly gasping for breath.

Then, at long last, she got to her feet once again, her pale face popping back into Diana's view, eyes still glowing faintly.

"It worked." Monika breathed, astonished.

Diana didn't know what she meant, until she saw the girl was looking to her right, and noticed that her arm had pointed straight upwards without her realizing, the tips of her fingers scraping against the ceiling itself. Alarmed at the implications of what this meant, and what further things Monika could possibly make her do, she tried lowering her arm again...

_Stop._

_Lift your right arm._

...but she couldn't.

"Amazing." Monika said, looking awestruck at something above Diana's head. She'd previously said the word "stop" was floating above it. Had the command to raise her right arm appeared there as well now?

"It's... it's like I've rewritten the very code of your character, instead of merely manipulating it with the Sliders." She said, and a small smile stretched across her face. "New ability unlocked!"

Then, she grunted again, closing her glowing eyes and grasped her head.

"It packs a wallop, though. Like fully filling five consecutive Sliders in a row. If it wasn't for the tolerance I've built up through the week, I'd probably have passed out by now from the pain. Don't think I'll be able to use this much when it has this effect on me. Unless..."

She stopped talking, a curious look on her face as she seemed to consider a new idea that had just popped into her head. She reached into the pocket of her gray, school uniform blazer, fumbling a bit before pulling out a small, portable hand mirror.

"Let's see if this works." Monika said, and looked down into the reflective glass surface with the same look of concentration she'd had before.

It took much less time now before her eyes lit up again, filling the room. She said nothing this time, instead just gritting her teeth in effort, and lightly shaking the hand holding the mirror. Then, the light faded away again, ever so slowly, and Monika lowered the mirror.

"Okay..." She said hesitantly, clenching and unclenching her fists. "I... _think_ it worked, but I need to be sure. Let's see..."

Monika pointed her head downwards, looking at her own body, searching for something. Apparently finding it, she raised one of her arms, and inspected her long, slender fingers. Then, she lifted her other arm, slowly reaching over with her thumb and index finger to pinch a protuding nail of the other hand's finger.

Then, she started bending the fingernail upwards.

Realizing what she was about to do, Diana felt sickened to her stomach, and wanted to close her eyes in disgust, but couldn't. While the _"stop"_ commanddidn't have an effect on her eyes, her morbid curiosity wouldn't allow her to miss this, no matter how horrible it was.

Monika's face remained neutral, no hint of trepidation on her face as she continued pulling the fingernail upwards, until a low, soft, dragged out _"ssshhkk"_ noise could be heard in the quiet hallway, like the sound of skin getting peeled off an orange. It was then topped off by a sharp _crack_ as Monika fully ripped off the entirety of the nail from her finger.

Diana stared in shock and horror at the girl's finger, bare to the world with a mass of bright, red blood where her nail had once been, but was now being held triumphantly by Monika in her other hand.

"The clown girl was right." Monika said in a voice of wonder, inspecting the bloody nail. "It _is_ oddly satisfying to pull your nails out by the root. Especially when you've removed your ability to feel pain beforehand!"

She then gazed upwards, making eye contact with Diana once more, smiling.

"Now, what do you suppose I'll be able to do, when I no longer have to worry about the one thing keeping me back? No pain means no cooldown periods between breaking the game. I can move the Sliders, use this new Rewrite function all I want now, without needing to chug aspirins all the damn time. There's no way I won't get my Ending now!"

Diana found herself wishing for faculty to arrive, to save her from this psychotic girl. She'd never felt this helpless before in her life! Surely a few lingering staff members had to have heard their screams, and come up to investigate?

 _Selfish coward!_ She thought. _You're a warrior, an Amazon, and yet you plead for the help of mere mortals? Monika would just bring them under her control as easily as she did to you!_

Her chastising thoughts were right. Nobody present would be able to help her. All she could do was hope to eventually be able to overpower this control, or wait for the Justice League to notice her absence. But that could take days, and who knew what this girl would make her do in that amount of time?

Monika turned her head to the side of Diana, something having caught her interest. Diana looked out of the corner of her eyes as well, following her line of sight to see...

_Oh Gods, no._

The Perfect was lying on the ground where she had dropped it, vaguely illuminating the hallway in its faint, golden glow. Diana's greatest asset, bundled up in a heap, as useless to her as any other piece of rope now.

"Ooh, shiny!" Monika laughed, approaching it carelessly, bending down to inspect it closer. She reached out with her hand.

"Always wondered how this thing worke-"

The moment her nailless finger made the slightest bit of contact with The Perfect, Monika screamed. It was her highest volume output yet, trumping even the one that had caused her eyes to erupt into light. Diana could only stand by and observe as the girl flung herself away from the ancient relic, as if she'd been burned by liquid metal.

She screamed for the longest time, minute after minute, until her voice eventually gave out. She curled herself up into a fetal position, hugging her own body as she broke down even further, sobbing hysterically, even retching a few times all the while heavy tears streamed down her face, making her dark mascara streak.

"No... no, no no..." She mumbled between quick, gasping breaths, hyperventilating. "No pain. No pain. No p- oh _God,_ what have I done?!"

Despite all the things Monika had done to her, Diana couldn't help but feel a twinge of sympathy for Monika. She didn't quite know _what_ was happening to the young girl, but whatever The Perfect had shown her, it was clearly causing her immense pain, whether that be physical, emotional, or both.

With great effort, Monika managed to reach into her pocket again, her body still shaking all over. Fighting to stay still between the sniffling, sobbing, and more retching, she pulled out the small hand mirror once more, staring at her reflection with such desperation one would think her very life depended on it.

Her eyes started glowing again, and she exhaled shudderingly, but apparently wasn't done with the mirror yet. Keeping up her stare, she looked at her reflection for what must have been twenty minutes straight, the light in her eyes having long since faded into nothing by the time she finally looked up from it again, wiping the tears away from her face with her sleeve.

She was no longer crying. Instead, she shot Diana the most intense glare as of yet, her green eyes, bloodshot from crying so much filled with a loathing so fierce, it would have caused Diana to take a step back had she been able to.

"What..." Monika spoke up in a hoarse, raspy voice, torn from screaming. "... _is_ that thing?!"

She pointed in the direction of The Perfect with a shaky finger.

"And how the _fuck_ did it just delete every single safeguard I've put into myself over these days when I touched it?! I thought I was going to die!"

Before Diana could even start to wonder how she was supposed to answer without being able to move her mouth, Monika's eyes had flared up again with ghostly green light.

_Tell Monika what the Lasso is._

She'd been prepared for the pain this time, but that didn't make it any less unbearable. She still wasn't able to move, or scream. All she could do was clench her fists tighter, as she shook on the spot.

Then, her mouth opened by it's own accord, and she started speaking in a robotic, monotone voice.

"The Golden Perfect, also known as The Lasso of Truth, is an acient relic forged by Hephaestus millions of years ago. It is imbued with an unbreakable enchantment, causing ones bound by it to speak the truth, clear minds and burn away lies and illusions."

Diana was not a stranger to mind control, having faced too many telepaths in her battles to be unaccustomed to the sensation of having her will bent to someone else. But this? This was something different. A level of control even greater than Maxwell Lord's, easily. With that, she'd been able to at least fight it, a little. Monika's commands were something more like her manually welding new aspects of her personality into her brain, hardwiring her on the spot as if they'd always been a part of her.

It was unthinkable for her _not_ to stop moving, to lower her right arm, to refuse telling Monika about The Perfect. As unthinkable as the idea of her burning down Themyscira or killing an innocent person. She just... wasn't able to resist.

"I am _not_ making lies or illusions!" Monika yelled angrily, stamping her feet on the floor, enraged. "I am rewriting the code, making my own truth in this horrible, fake world!"

Diana tried to ask her to explain what she meant, tried to open up a dialogue to reach a common understanding, to perhaps disarm this whole situation before it could escalate any further.

Instead, she could only repeat what she'd already explained about The Perfect's origin.

"The Golden Perfect, also known as The Lasso of Truth, is an ancient relic-"

 _"Shut up!"_ Monika yelled, her eyes flaring up once more, and Diana was silenced once more, eyes rolling up into the back of her skull as the pain increased tenfold.

"Fuck you!" Monika kept going, in a voice that was growing increasingly hysterical. "Y- you're not real! I can see your Sliders, just like I can everyone else's! You're just as fake as the rest of us! You don't even know what you're talking about! You're just saying what you've been pre-programmed into believing! The Sliders are _not lies!"_

She screamed the last bit, and Diana could only stand there, thinking it sounded more like the girl was trying to convince _herself,_ instead of her.

Monika breathed heavily for a few seconds before speaking up again, in a state of forced calm.

"It... it has to be some kind of Moderator tool." Monika said, hesitantly, her voice thick with uncertainty. "The Developers must have noticed the messed up code and sent you here to fix it. I can't let that happen. Not when I'm so close."

Diana's vision slowly returned again, allowing her to see the back of Monika, hurrying away from her, disappearing into the door of the classroom by the end of the hallway. She was alone now.

She glanced over in the direction of The Perfect, still laying there on the floor, glowing peacefully. If she'd deciphered the truth between the lines of Monika's talk of codes and sliders correctly, the Lasso had been able to remove all the effects she'd put upon herself, with something as simple as a touch.

It was only two feet away from her. If she could just close the distance, and make even the slightest bit of contact with the magical rope, she could break free from Monika's control and take her down.

Only two feet. She only needed to move two, small steps to get out of this...

_Stop._

It could might as well have been located on the other end of the galaxy, for how much she was able to access it.

"Okay, I'm back." Monika called, emerging from the classroom, holding a long, plastic ruler.

She briskly walked over to The Perfect and, careful not to touch it with her skin, placed the ruler within its depths, and lifted it up. Turning her head, she made eye contact with Diana, and her eyes burst into the now familiar glow.

_Pick up the piano and carry it inside the classroom on the far end._

Accepting the pain, Diana walked over to the crashed instrument, bent down and picked it up with little effort. Then, with Monika trailing behind her, she obediantly walked into the classroom and placed it in an open space. She then stopped up a few feet from it, raising her right arm to the ceiling once again.

Watching from the corner of her eye, she saw Monika opening a drawer by the far end of the room, sliding The Perfect into it from the ruler. There was an echoing _click_ as she locked the drawer and walked back over to Diana, looking at her with a look that could only be described as completely devoid of mercy.

"Tell me." She said, looking directly into the heroine's eyes. "Does it hurt when I Rewrite you?"

Her green eyes flared up.

_Answer Monika._

"Y- yes." Diana said, over the pain. "I- immensely so."

"Good." Monika said, no anger or satisfaction present in her voice. "Maybe after a few hundred of them, you'll be able to feel a small fraction of how I felt when I touched your horrible rope. I might not be able to feel hurt anymore, but that doesn't mean I'll grant you the same luxury. You best prepare yourself, Wonder Woman. This is going to be a long, _painful_ night."

She turned away from Diana, slowly walking over to the piano, pulling up a chair to sit by the instrument.

"I tried playing nice, y'know." Monika said, gently sliding her fingers over the piano keys. "I tried to just subtly push at the other NPC's to make me the more attractive option to The Players. But Jon is still pining after Sayori, and now, in a cruel twist of fate, Natsuki and Damian are a thing. So, I'm done playing by the rules."

If Diana could have snapped her head back to look at Monika in surprise, she would have.

_Jon and Damian?_

How on Earth were those two super-troublemakers tied into all of this?!

"If I can't push them to make the choice I want," Monika continued, pressing a few keys on the piano, making the notes echo in the almost empty room. "I'll force them to. By making one of the most powerful characters eliminate the other girls from the playing field tomorrow, I'm gonna be the _only_ option available to them."

 _Hera, forgive me._ Diana sent a silent prayer, horrified at what Monika was going to make her do, praying to all the Gods she knew to strike herself down, kill her if they had to, instead of making her into a child-killing monster.

A tear streamed down her eye as the green light started erupting once more from Monika's sitting position.

* * *

"Every day, I-"

Monika coughed, and tried again.

"Every-"

Her voice cracked, and she swore silently, before trying again.

"Every day, I believe in a- _shoot!"_

Monika closed her eyes for two seconds before her hands moved down to the keys of the piano again, attempting for the fifteenth time to play her song.

"Every day- no, that's the wrong key." She said, sighing. "This is harder than it looks!"

Wonder Woman looked over at her unblinkingly from her postion at the side of the drawer containing the Lasso, not moving an inch.

_Do not move unless Monika allows it._

_Do not speak._

_Do not hurt Monika._

_Do not do anything unless Monika allows it._

_You may breathe._

The door to the classroom opened with a long creak, and both Monika and Wonder Woman raised their heads to look towards the unknown intruder. A young girl, taller than the average teenager but still no where near approaching Wonder Woman's height, stepped inside the room.

She was a student, evidenced by the uniform, and had long, purple hair going all the way down to her thighs. In the faint moonlight emerging from the windows, Wonder Woman thought she could see dark, wet patches around her sleeves.

"Uhm..." She said, hesitantly. "H- hello?"

Wonder Woman just stared at her, fully prepared to rush and separate the girl's head from her shoulders, should Monika allow it.

_You will obey Monika's every demand._

_You will not hesitate to attack, should Monika give the signal._

_You will protect Monika from all harm._

_You will put Monika's life above your own._

_You will kill for Monika._

"Yuri! What a pleasant surprise!" Monika exclaimed, rising from her seat at the piano. She smiled at the young girl, who seemed to be taken aback by Monika's voice. "Quite a while you spent in that bathroom. What happened? Did you nick an artery and pass out?

Wonder Woman faintly remembered Monika mentioning a Yuri cutting herself in the bathroom, from a conversation that seemed years ago. Might as well have been, since she'd been a completely different person back then, who'd actually cared when she'd heard. Now though? She'd already forgotten her name.

It wasn't relevant to Monika.

"Uhm." the Purple One said shyly, then blushed as she looked around the room, noticing Wonder Woman. "W- who is that?"

"Oh, don't worry about her." Monika waved her off casually. "That's just Wonder Woman."

"T- _the_ Wonder Woman?!" the Purple One exclaimed, shocked.

"How many other Wonder Women do you know?" Monika giggled. "Turns out she was the special guest the school got for the Festival, and now she's just staying the night here while I practice piano. Say hi!"

"Uh... hi, Wonder Woman!" the Purple One waved at her shyly, giving a nervous smile.

Wonder Woman did not reply, nod, or blink in response, instead keeping up her steely eye contact. Monika hadn't told her she could greet her back, and she doubted she would if she'd been able to. Well, unless Monika told her to, of course. This Purple One meant less than nothing to her, just an insignificant possible threat, someone for her to monitor in order to keep Monika safe.

The girl lowered her hand again, awkwardly.

"Yeah, good ol' Double-Dubs here isn't exactly one for conversations." Monika said, still smiling.

"Oh. Right." The Purple One said, distracted, then sharply turned her head back towards Monika. "Wait, you said t- the Festival is over?"

"Well, yeah." Monika said, and frowned. "Oh you poor thing, you didn't even realize when you saw how dark the school's gotten?"

"N- no." The Purple One said, sounding disstressed. "I- I've been a bit d- distracted. H- how long...?"

"At least two hours ago." Monika said. "Everyone's gone home already. You, me and Dubs are the only ones left."

"Oh... oh no..." The Purple One grasped a few strands of her long hair. "S- so that means... Damian isn't..."

"Damian went home with Natsuki before the Festival even started properly." Monika said, and Wonder Woman saw a faint smile emerge on her face in the moonlight. "I guess they had more pressing things they wanted to do, alone with each other, instead of staying here."

The Purple One looked as if someone had just punched her in the face.

"Damian and N- N- Nat..."

"Oh, you didn't know?" Monika asked, and her smile grew wider. "Him and Natsuki already left for home, long before the Festival even started. Apparently they've become a bit of an item, isn't that fun?"

"N- no, I d- didn-"

"Ohhh, that's right!" Monika said, snapping her finger as if she'd just remembered something. "You had a thing for him, didn't you?"

The Purple One didn't reply, instead just shaking on the spot in much the same way Wonder Woman would do when Monika deemed it necessary to Rewrite her. Even though she'd done it so much in the past hour, she still hadn't gotten accustomed to the level of pain it caused each time.

The pain was okay though. As long as Monika thought she needed it, she would endure all manners of torture laid upon her. After all, it was Monika who did it. And...

_Monika is always right._

_You will obey Monika's every demand._

"Man, kinda messed up of Natsuki to go after the boy you were pining for, isn't it?" Monika went on, thoughtfully. "What do you think they're doing at this moment? Well, it's late, so they're probably in bed. Maybe even sharing one, doing God knows what to each other. Or maybe just sleeping peacefully, side by side. Sounds nice, don't you think?"

The Purple One still didn't reply, keeping up her shaking instead. A tear trickled down her face, glittering in the faint light.

"Well, we can discuss that with them at the meeting tomorrow. Say, why don't you stay here with us for the night, join in on our little sleepover? Trust me, you don't want to walk home at this hour, you might encounter a _crazy_ person!"

"Y- yes." The Purple One spoke up, closing her eyes in quiet acceptance. "I- I definitely am aware of that."

"Yay!" Monika exclaimed, excitedly. "I have to practice this song and make sure I perfect it for tomorrow, but we can still talk about boys and junk, just us girls. Have a seat!"

Wonder Woman's eyes idly followed The Purple One, as she slowly drifted over to one of the chairs in the classrom, and sat down. She didn't like having this unknown potential threat hanging around Monika, but she would nevertheless fulfill her duties as the girl's protector, and keep watch. After all...

_Monika is always right._

_You will protect Monika from all harm._

As Monika started pressing the keys on her piano again, and The Purple One looked as unthreatening as she could probably get, Wonder Woman took a moment to self-reflect on the events that had led up to this moment in her life.

She hadn't always been this mistrustful of strangers. She hadn't always felt the need to strategize the quickest and most efficient way to kill each person she saw even approach Monika. She'd used to harbor strong love for every living being on the planet, wanting to help and accept anyone who needed it from her.

She'd used to have a plethora of friends and family, whom she'd loved dearly, willing to sacrifice her very life for each and every one of them.

She'd used to have a lover.

But now, after just a few hours of being in Monika's company, she'd come to the conclusion that she just didn't really... _care_ about any of them.

It had taken her a while to realize this. Even after Monika in her infinite wisdom had Rewritten her to be her new protector, she'd struggled to break free, having fought futilely against her commands, had even hated Monika, and cursed her with every fiber of her being.

Even as she'd accepted it as her duty to kill whoever sought to oppose Monika, she'd hoped desperately for someone like Kal-El or J'onn to kill her first. She hadn't wanted to hurt her "friends."

But the feelings for her friends had eventually ebbed out, the more time she'd spent standing here. Monika had looked at her patiently, without blinking for about an hour, and slowly but surely, the aggressive feelings had just... vanished on the spot. And not just her hatred for Monika, but also her love, compassion, trust. For everyone in her life, Wonder Woman now felt... nothing.

The more Monika had looked at her, the more Wonder Woman had accepted her new way of thinking, and gained an all new headache to boot. A slower pain, that snuck up on her instead of the direct, skull-splitting one that came with the Rewrites.

There was a certain amount of liberty and freedom that came with not having feelings for the people in her life anymore. Well, in fairness, she supposed she _was_ currently forced to obey every order that Monika issued, but aside from that small detail, she felt pretty free.

By no longer having any allegiance to the Justice League, she didn't have to worry about the overwhelming threats to her allies in their line of duty, didn't need to go through the devastating heartbreak of a teammate dying, like when Kal had been slain at the hands of Doomsday, or the simultaneuos feelings of relief and exhaustion when that teammate was resurrected once more. Like Kal, after having been slain by Doomsday.

She no longer had to feel guilt about having left her mother and sisters on Themyscira, didn't need to feel stressed about having to fit visiting days to the island into her busy schedule. Unless Monika wished to go there at some point, she didn't feel like she ever had to go to the Amazon island again in her immortal life.

And she didn't need to fear Steve Trevor breaking up with her for not being there for him more, cancelling their dates, and never having enough time to just be a couple, like normal people, since she no longer bore any love for the mortal.

There was no more room in her heart for Kal, Bruce, Etta Candy, Steve Trevor, the League, her sisters, her mother or anyone else on the planet, except for Monika.

Just Monika.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you Kariminal, for your feedback on the previous chapter!  
> Regarding your feedback on Sayori, my thought process was basically that it’s not so much that she doesn’t believe Jon’s explanation of the Metagene, it’s the fact that he’s saying Monika is doing it.  
> In my mind, Sayori idolizes Monika, looks up to her, and wishes she could be more like her. To her, Monika easily takes the spot of best friend and in her mind, the feeling is mutual.   
> The very idea that someone like that would hurt her? She’ll be in heavy denial about that, even when the evidence seems insurmountable.


	14. Interlude VI: On Edge Pt 1

**THEN**

It had stopped raining.

She could finally emerge from the bus stop she'd used as a makeshift cover from the hammering raindrops, a type of weather all too common here in Gotham, and step out onto the deserted, soaked streets. She breathed in, and caught the usual mixtured smell of garbage and chemicals in the air, but beneath that lied the pleasant scent of petrichor, which she enjoyed quite a lot. Well, she enjoyed the word, having recently read it in a book and looked it up, which then in turn made her appreciate the smell she'd always taken for granted.

She'd been lucky to have found the bus stop when she had, before the rain had really started to catch on, and overwhelm her in its cold, wet embrace. Even luckier had it been that no one else had sought refuge under the small roof of the bus stop, since the prospect of standing in such a cramped space in close proximity to a total stranger would in all likelihood have made her head straight into the downpour, even though it meant miles worth of trodding in the freezing February weather. But it would also ensure that this hypothetical person wouldn't try and start a conversation with her that she could muck up, like it seemed she always did.

Yuri was not what could be called a "social" person.

But not having to face the horror of another human trying to talk to her, had been where her luck ended.

The bus stop hadn't insulated much against the temperature, which in fairness _was_ above freezing, although not by much. Oh, she was sure the coldness would have been way worse if she had really gone out into the rain, but even being as dry as she was, the ice-like wind crept along over all the places her bare skin was exposed by this ridiculous outfit she was wearing, sending a multitude of chills down her spine. Even the covered parts of her body weren't safe, as the purple fabric that made up her dress was far too thin to protect her from the unyielding breeze.

She wished she was wearing her thick, white, comfortable sweater instead. Or even her Gotham High uniform with its way too short blue skirt exposing her legs would have been better than this. People always claimed she was among the smartest people at school, just because she could usually be seen somewhere in a quiet corner, reading a book, but if she truly was as intelligent as people said, one would think she would have remembered to bring a jacket with her at this time of year. What had she been thinking, going to that party dressed like this?

The party.

Yuri shuddered, in equal parts from the cold of the city, and the memories of the events that had transpired just a few hours ago, and fought back tears as her mind once again forced her to relive it.

 _I really screwed up everything this time._ She thought miserably, throwing her bare arms around herself, the normally smooth pale skin of them littered with goosebumps as she tried in vain to protect them from the cold.

Of course the dress couldn't have had sleeves either, and she silently cursed herself even further in her mind for wearing it, as she began her long journey home through the dark, empty streets of the city, the usual clouds in the sky above blocking the view of all stars, making the street lamps along the road the only source of light available.

As she walked, she thought back on that horrible party, and reflected on all the things she had done to mess it up.

Under any other normal circumstances, the idea of going to this, or any other social gathering really, would have been completely out of the question for her, and would have been cause for Yuri to break out her usual, polite white lies when getting the invitations, such as "I'd love to, but my grandmother is visiting!" or "Sorry, but my cat is sick." Well, she _hoped_ they would be seen as polite, in any regard.

It wasn't so much that she hated other people and their company, but more that she was completely clueless on how to act amongst them. It seemed to her like every time she would try to contribute to a conversation someone else were having about a topic she knew about, or answer a question the teacher asked them in class, or even something as simple as laughing at a joke someone was telling, she would only be met with awkward silences and judgmental stares.

She wasn't sure why exactly things were like this, since in her mind she followed the correct social cues to speak up at the right intervals, but obviously she had to be doing something wrong as she kept getting those unwelcome reactions whenever she'd decide to speak up. Years of this putting pressure on her, making her blush in embarrasment and stutter and stumble over her own words, she'd eventually learned to just stop speaking up unless spoken to, and avoid situations where she would find herself amongst others, as a way to prevent those unwanted moments.

All this had resulted in her essentially going through this whole school semester without speaking to anyone, making any friends, and basically checking all the boxes for the "social outcast" role. But it really wasn't as bad as it sounded.

She kind of liked the peace and quiet that came with being alone, and having no friends meant no one for her to worry about and get anxious over. It also meant way more free time for her to use on her homework, and of course reading, which should go without saying that she enjoyed quite a lot.

But then, everything had changed when _he_ had come into her life.

Caleb.

A foreign exchange student. It had surprisingly enough been him who had approached her first, on a typical rainy Gotham day after class. She'd been sitting by her desk at the far end corner of the classroom, all her things having been neatly packed away in her backpack except for the book she'd been reading. She always lagged a little behind everyone else when classes ended, as a way for her not to get caught up in the chaos of students all crashing into each other in their effort to get outside the school.

While others might not find it optimal to read a story with all the noise of yelling, chattering teenagers all around her, she had a talent for getting completely sucked into whatever book she was currently reading, losing her senses for the world around her, to the point where the teacher sometimes had to poke her shoulder before she realized that the classroom had been deserted for ten minutes or so.

On that fateful day a few weeks ago she'd been quite surprised, when Caleb had approached her desk, and, sounding genuinely interested, asked what she was reading.

Having been caught off guard, she'd mumbled some general vague plot summary, that probably sounded incredibly boring if not completely unintelligable, and certainly unworthy of the quality of the book. She was sure that she could do better if she'd known he'd ask her, and had some more time to prepare.

But to her further surprise, he hadn't seemed to be at all bothered by her poor explanation, and had instead told her it sounded fascinating, to the point where he might consider picking it up himself. He'd revealed that he was something of an avid reader himself, and they'd fallen into talks about their favorite books and writers.

It had gone on like that for the next few weeks, them catching each other at various moments in school, and just... talking to eachother.

She had found that he was actually really easy to talk to, with none of her social problems presenting themselves in their conversations. She'd shared more about herself to him than she'd ever done to anyone else in her life, like her favorite brand of tea, her hopes for a future career as a writer, and so many other things she never would have dreamed of telling anyone else.

In turn, she'd learned more about him as well. He was from Europe, evidenced in part by his corn-blonde hair, and had dreams himself about becoming an actor. He had the ability to do some downright mindbending impressions, being able to disguise his own voice and accent so well, it was like he became a whole other person entirely. Her personal favorite was his parody of a typical cowboy, which he'd use to spout off various Wild West tropes and phrases that amused her greatly, but also somehow, confusingly enough, made him seem more... attractive.

Not that she had a thing for cowboys or anything, it was more the fact that he was able to do it, the raw talent so clearly present within him that made her want to get closer to Caleb, closer than she'd ever been to another person before.

Which all led into that afternoon a few days ago, where he'd personally handed her an invitation for his birthday party that he would be holding at his host family's place, telling her that he really hoped she could make it, and that, in his own words, she was "one of the best friends he'd made during his time here in America."

Her heart had leapt what felt like several feet in the air at that point, doing somersaults and breaking into song, all at the same time, and she'd done something that had filled her up with as much excitement as it did paralyzing terror: she'd accepted the invitation.

Her instincts told her no. The rational side of her brain told her it was a bad idea. Her memories reminded her of all the unpleasant experiences she'd had with social gatherings before, and helpfully let her know that a party would be _the_ social event to go to, which for her would be like knowingly throwing herself into shark-infested waters, with an open wound to get the feeding frenzy started.

But her heart, still fluttering from the comment about her being one of his best friends, had told her that this would be the best opportunity she would ever get at admitting her true feelings for him, and then surely he would say in response that he felt the same way, right? After all, being his friend wasn't so far removed from being his _girl_ friend. The only reason he hadn't taken the next leap himself was because he was a boy, and it was a well known fact that boys, no matter how kind and amazing Caleb was, couldn't take initiative to something like this. It had made sense, or so she'd told herself.

The next few days had been very hectic for her, as she constantly went over the upcoming day in her head, going through all the things she would do to make sure it would go as smoothly as possible. It had been on her mind when she'd wake up in the morning, while walking to school, in the middle of classes, at lunch break, and when she'd go to sleep in the evening again. She'd been stressing so much about it that she'd skipped meals, and even puked once in the morning before she'd gone to school.

She'd convinced herself that it wasn't anything to worry about. Less eating and even throwing up meant a thinner body for her, which meant she'd look more attractive to him, right?

Following that vein of thought, she'd gone to a clothes shop after researching what the newest, hottest dresses were, and for the first time in her life had bought something based merely on its appearance, instead of how comfortable she felt wearing it: the dress. The purple dress to match her hair and eyes, with its silky fabric and lack of a back, which made her feel incredibly underdressed wearing it, but had convinced herself that it would be for the best, that it would improve the chances of him saying yes when she'd finally ask him by looking as desirable as possible. Not that she would need it, because of course he'd say yes. There was no reason he wouldn't say yes to his best friend, after all. Wearing the dress would just... help, that was all.

The dress had cost her almost all of her money, and she'd realized in horror that she still needed to buy him a birthday present. The invitation had said it wasn't required, but everyone knew that only cheapskates showed up at a birthday party without a present.

She'd used her remaining cash to get the most authentic looking cowboy hat she could find, hoping it would be enough. As an extra security measure, she spent five hours in a straight sitting in order to construct the best poem she could manage, which would put her feelings for him into beautiful words she could never hope to properly formulate into speech, and wrapped both hat and poem into bright, purple wrapping paper.

It was downright surreal to her how far she was taking this. She'd never shown her writing to anyone else before, and now she would be sharing it at a party, with so many people she'd never even talked to before.

But Caleb would be there. And as long as he was present, as long as he would read her confession, the other people didn't matter at all. There was too much at stake here, and she'd invested way too much into things to be discouraged by her social anxiety now.

And at last, the day of the party arrived.

She had nearly died of embarrasment when a member of his host family, a very chatty woman with curly, brown hair, had arrived in a car by her home to pick her up, as per the arrangement Yuri had made with Caleb.

He lived too far away for one to walk, especially on a rainy day in February. It had been a pretty awkward car ride, not helped along in the slightest by Caleb's absence, but she understood it. She'd been foolish to assume the birthday boy would personally pick up everyone. She'd tried her best to be as polite, coherant and _normal_ as it was possible for someone like her to be in her responses to the woman's endless smalltalk, though it had been very hard not to blush and stutter when she had praised Yuri's appearance with the dress to the moon and back.

Twenty minutes, that felt like three hours of intense regret and feeling sick with anxiety later, she'd finally emerged from the car to head into Caleb's house.

It hadn't been a good experience, but she had known that from the beginning. The house had been very crowded, filled to the brim with young people she didn't know at all, even though she had probably attended the same school as them for over a year, and they were all chatting excitedly to each other. She hadn't known what to do there, since the purse she'd brought along with her hadn't been big enough to fit one of her books, and it wouldn't have mattered anyway since there wasn't any unoccupied corners for her to sit down and read.

Her nerves had been eased a tiny amount when Caleb had seen her, and told her in one of his funny accents how beautiful she looked, and to place the gift she was carrying on a table with the other presents to be opened at a later time (showing she'd been correct in ignoring the guideline on the invitation) and lastly to just relax and have fun.

Which had been easier said than done. She hadn't blamed Caleb for not spending more of his time on her, leaving her to her own devices so he could talk to his other guests, that was what a host did, after all. But it had left her in quite a predicament as she'd just kinda drifted around the room, trying to locate a spot with the least amount of people. She'd probably unnerved quite a few guests by not talking to anyone and staring ahead of herself, trying to find a mental happy place, like her and Caleb, alone together, on an empty field. It hadn't blocked the anxiety she'd felt as people kept staring at her and that damned dress, while it was painfully evident to her that none of them were as fancily dressed.

At long last, it was time for Caleb to open his presents.

It was... odd, how they decided to do it. All the guests grabbed hold of the present they'd brought with them, and lined up single file to hand the birthday host his presents one at a time.

As usual, Yuri only understood way too late what the others were doing, and as a result ended up the last person in the queue, right behind who she knew was Caleb's best male friend, since they always seemed to be hanging out together. She couldn't remember his name, them having never really spoken to eachother before.

It was both a good and bad thing to have the present ceremony done like this. It was a way to make sure Caleb never skimmed over a single gift, and could properly thank the person giving it, which he made sure he did with flawless courtesy. But it also made the buildup nearly unbearable for Yuri, whose heart seemed to pound harder and harder against her chest the closer she got to him.

It seemed like most people had opted for just giving Caleb cash, which suited her just fine. Oh sure, being the gentleman he was, he would thank them just the same, but she knew that a personalized gift like hers would trump everyone else's, and no one had gone through the time and effort to pour out their heart and soul onto paper like she had. Despite her nerves, she had confidence that her gift would be the best one.

It had just been her, and the male friend of Caleb's left. She had felt herself shaking slightly, just one more person left until she could deliver her own gift. Strangely enough though, it seemed like the male friend either had something very small to give the host, or nothing at all, since he just stood there in front of her, a casual smile on his face, his hands concealed in his pockets. She'd thought maybe he was just going to hand him some crumbled up dollar bills, until he'd spoken up to Caleb.

"Well, Caleb." He'd said, in a relaxed voice, looking directly into the boy's eyes, who smiled back at him. "It seems like I forgot to buy anything for you. How clumsy of me."

"Oh?" Caleb had responded, his smile growing wider. "Not gonna lie, that's kinda disappointing dude. I was sure you of all people would have something for me."

They had been doing that thing she'd seen other close friends did, speaking as if they were offended, while you could clearly hear on their tones that they weren't. She wouldn't pretend she really understood why, since she didn't really have anybody in her life like that, but she could appreciate the closeness these two friends had between eachother.

The male friend had shrugged his shoulders.

"It is what it is, I suppose." Then, he'd snapped his fingers, as if he'd just thought of something. "But y'know, maybe there's something I can do to make it up to you."

"Hmm." Caleb had said, in mock thoughtfulness. "I dunno, dude. It would have to be something pretty big for me to forgive you for this forgetfulness."

"Oh, I think you'll like this well enough." The male friend had said, and took a few steps closer to Caleb. "C'mere, pretty boy."

And then, without further ado, the male friend had inched his head forwards, locking lips with the birthday boy right in front of Yuri.

It was like the whole world shattered around her as she stared in utter shock and disbelief at the display of uncontained lust and yearning in front of her, both of them running their hands affectionately over the other's body, neither of them breaking the kiss. This clearly wasn't just a spur-of-the-moment thing that could be played off as a joke for shock value by the male friend. This was pure, uncontained, shameless passion between two people quite clearly in love, going on in front of her.

And she hadn't realized it before now.

She'd racked her brain, trying to recall all the moments she and Caleb had shared during these past few weeks, trying to find some kind of evidence to somehow convince herself that this scene didn't make any sense, and could only be a nightmare she had yet to wake up from.

But nothing sprang to mind. Throughout all this time, they had mostly talked about books and writing, but never once had the topic of love come up, nothing about Caleb being single, or if he was even attracted to girls in the first place. Those had all been blanks she had filled out in her own head, taking them for granted. And as she thought back, recontextualizing every scenario, she realized that he had never referred to her as anything besides a good friend.

The other guests had been making loud "OOOH" noises, a clear mixture of cheering and mocking going through the crowd at seeing the male friend doing his very best to shove his tongue down Caleb's throat, and vice versa. Yuri had noted at the time that none of them had seemed surprised at the display, most likely because they'd seen the "friendship" between the two boys for what it really was, instead of what she had hoped it to be. Plenty of the audience had pulled out their phones, snapping pictures of the kiss while laughing, a darkhaired girl even pushing Yuri a bit to the side for a better view.

Shaken from her momentary paralysis, Yuri had come to herself, wiping the tears that had formed at the corners of her eyes away, as she'd utilized the chaos around her to tear a small hole in the wrapping paper she was holding, and with two long, shaky fingers fished out the poem inside the cowboy hat, putting it inside her purse. Then, seemingly without being noticed by any of the people around her, she'd placed the gift back at the table, and with a last glance back at who she'd thought would be her boyfriend, she'd quietly stalked out of the house.

A strong burst of wind brushed past Yuri, making her shiver as she walked past a dark alleyway. The thin dress was little more effective at warding off the cold than if she was wearing wet tissue paper instead. She sniffled slightly, tears streaming down her face from reminiscing the party and everything that had gone wrong.

Why was it that all her attempts to find love ended this way?

Caleb hadn't been the first boy to break her heart. Far from it, actually.

Throughout her life, she'd had plenty of crushes on various boys, the earliest of which she could recall having been a boy she'd met in middle school by the age of 11. It was funny, she'd been so enamored with him back then, but now she couldn't even remember his name. They'd been playing together daily, and even agreed to get married when they grew up, (which had probably been meant as joke, but she'd taken it seriously) but then after an arson spree caused by Firefly had taken place dangerously close to his family's house, he'd moved away to Metropolis, and he hadn't spoken to her since, which had been understandably devastating for her back then.

Then, in her rebellious age of 15 where she'd wanted to show that she was above the rules of her parents, she'd met Mac, a tough guy who'd had a fancy motorcycle they'd ride through the city together past curfew, laughing together about how much they hated their parents, the government, Bruce Wayne, and basically anyone they considered rich and/or powerful.

She'd actually been the one to end their relationship, when he'd taken her to a warehouse on the outskirts of the city one night and revealed to her that "the internship" he'd told her about, which was how he got the money for the bike, had been from being employed by The Riddler as a henchman. Horrified by this revelation, she had swiftly cut him off from her life, deleted her social media accounts, and thus her rebellious streak had come to an end. She knew she had made the right choice, but that didn't make it hurt any less, since she had liked Mac quite a lot before seeing his true side.

Then there had been the time half a year ago where her eye had been caught by an older guy with beautiful tattoos across his arms, and a brilliant sense of humor along with a kind, helpful voice that made her think she could trust him with anything. Only problem being he'd been her math teacher, and after a few conversations which frankly were too embarrasing to even recall, that unfortunate crush had thankfully come to a swift end as well.

Yuri sighed, stopping under the light of a streetlamp to lean against a run down brick wall, right next to an alleyway. It took quite a toll on her to even think back on those old crushes of hers, and how they'd been doomed to fail, now with Caleb being the newest one to join them.

She wondered why this always happened to her, getting so obsessed with any and all boys who showed her even the slightest bit of kindness. Just a single smile from them would be enough for her to fall for them, head over heels in an instant.

Caleb would probably wonder where she had went, disappearing from his party like that without saying anything. Maybe he'd even worry about her, and text her since she'd given him her number weeks before. Should she do like she'd done with Mac, ghosting him until he gave up? That would be an awful thing to do to him since he really hadn't done anything wrong, but at the same time she doubted she could remain friends with him after this. It would just hurt too much.

Yuri suddenly remembered she was still walking around with the poem in her purse. The poem she had spent so much time writing, now fated to go unread by everyone except her, just like all the other poems she'd been too afraid to show anyone.

_No._

Perhaps it was just the distraught emotional state she was in at the moment, but the thought of ever reading the contents of that paper again after today actually managed to make her sick to her stomach (not helped along by the fact that she hadn't eaten anything today) as it would serve to be nothing more than some horrible reminder of quite possibly the worst mistake she'd ever made in her life. She reached into her purse, fully intending to pick up the poem, and rip it into a thousand little pieces, the last proof of her true feelings for the boy she could never have, being dropped, scattered and forgotten by the wind.

But instead of paper, her fingers made contact with something she most certainly hadn't inserted inside the purse herself. Something soft, spongy, and vaguely sticky.

Confused, she grabbed hold of the unidentified item, and pulled it up to inspect it by the streetlamp's light.

It was a cupcake.

The tiny brown pastry, fitting snugly in the palm of her hand, emitted a pleasant, sweet smell that overpowered the chemicals, pollution and petrichor by being in such close proximity to her. Lines of red frosting on top of it, lightly smudged a bit by her fumbling fingers, made up the blocky letters of a handwriting she clearly recognized, as if she knew of anyone else who could bake something of this quality.

Natsuki had written "SORRY."

Yuri hadn't even seen the short girl at the party, but it was very likely she'd been there, hidden from view by a number of factors: Yuri's stressed state of mind, Natsuki's own anti-social behaviour and of course, her own height. Yuri, being as tall as she was, would have sticked out like a sore thumb dressed like she was, making an easy target for Natsuki to sneak up to her and plant the pastry into her purse without her noticing.

Yuri stared at the cupcake, trying to decipher its meaning, something she was rarely able to do when it concerned the pinkhaired girl.

Though she'd known her ever since the early days of kindergarten, they'd both mostly stuck to themselves, and Yuri had never quite been able to get a clear read on her, despite going to the same classes and even conversing with the girl on several occasions, usually started by Natsuki mocking her for something she did.

She didn't know if the ridicule was meant as a light ribbing among long time friends, if they even _were_ friends, or if Natsuki had just hated her all these years, and the jeering had always been what it sometimes felt like to her: bullying. She had actually tried asking the shorter girl, but the replies she'd gotten had always been either jokey or strangely cryptic, making it impossible to tell. Like with this cupcake.

Did the "SORRY" mean that Natsuki alone had been able to tell Yuri's feelings for Caleb? Or was it another evidence of her special brand of sarcasm?

Yuri couldn't say, but a loud growl from the pit of her stomach made her realize she didn't really care. She was hungry, and she was holding something edible, and if she knew Natsuki's baking skills right, delicious. The hidden meaning behind it really didn't matter as long as it could give her some much needed fuel for the long walk home.

While not typically one for eating sweets, she hungrily raised the pastry to her mouth, parting her lips, and-

"Terribly sorry to interrupt you like this, Miss."

Yuri's eyes widened in shock at the unexpected voice coming from right behind her, but just when she was about to scream, a rough hand clasped itself tightly around her mouth, drowning out the sound.

Starting to hyperventilate as the fear took hold of her body, she desperately tried reaching with her own hands to fight off the unseen assailant, causing the cupcake she'd been holding to fall down, landing with a soft splash in a puddle on the ground. Just as she made contact with the cold, strong hand around her mouth, she felt something even colder, harder and _sharper,_ around her throat.

"Please relax, Miss." The voice said again. It was unmistakably male, but more highpitched than what she considered normal, a slight hesitative shaking in it as if whoever had grabbed hold of her was chewing every word, picking and choosing carefully between them. "I understand this must be quite... _frightful_ for you, but I really must insist you follow me in here, away from the light. I think you'll find it to be in your best interest. Nod if you understand."

He pressed what she had to assume was a larger than average blade tighter against her throat, the meaning ringing crystal clear to her. Tears, no longer from regret over Caleb but instead the paralyzing fear that had grabbed hold of her, trickled down her face, and she weakly bobbed her head up and down.

"Great. That's good. Now, if you would be so kind as to follow my lead." He said, and she felt his hand around her mouth pull her gently, guiding her. She moved her legs, walking backwards into what she could tell was the dark alley.

This was like straight out of a night terror, only much worse since she unfortunately knew this was very much real. Disregarding the forced behaviour of this man, she _hated_ when other people touched her without her expecting it, even if it was something as innocent as a gentle hand on her shoulder from a teacher during a lesson. Since the man's hand was right underneath her nose, she could pick up the sickening odour of blood that had to be littering his fingers, making her dizzy.

"That's it. One step after the other, easy does it." He said, in what was probably supposed to be a soothing voice, but had the very opposite effect on her. "You're doing great, Miss. Just a few more steps..."

The light from the open street became smaller and more hard to make out as Yuri found herself deep, deep within the alley, before the man finally stopped the pull on her head.

"Alright." He said, and eased the blade around her throat a bit. "Now, I'd really prefer to have a nice, _civil_ talk with you. It's not every day I get the chance to do that, doing what I do, so it's always such a pleasure when this opportunity arises. That being said however, if you scream during this, I will not hesitate to cut your throat."

Yuri's heart pounded even harder at hearing that, and he must have picked up the vibrations through the knife still resting on her throat.

"I do implore you to think this through thoroughly, Miss. Take all the time you need, I am in no rush."

She just wanted to get his hand off her. It was hard to think of anything else, when she was forced to take in that horrible mixtured smell of blood and sweat underneath her nose.

She nodded her head again, to show that she understood.

"Ahh." The man sighed in satisfaction, and Yuri shuddered as she felt his warm breath on her hair. "I am so grateful to you for making this choice, Miss. I will let go of you in 3... 2... 1..."

The hand released her, and the smell of blood was swiftly replaced by the smell of litter from the garbage bin they were standing right next to. She breathed in deeply, and never thought she would be so relieved to smell rotting banana peels.

She used all her remaining willpower to keep herself from just ignoring her attacker's warning and scream her lungs out. As a compromise, she settled on trying to run away, but found that her legs weren't obeying her properly, feeling like jelly as the knees wobbled dangerously. She braced herself for impact as she started tobbling over.

"Careful!" The man exclaimed, worry in his voice, and she felt his hands on her body again, grabbing hold of her under her arms, keeping her from falling. Once again, she had to keep herself from screaming at the sensation of his touch.

"Here. Let's get you settled down, Miss." She felt him lower her gently, easing her down to sit on the moist ground, leaned up against the garbage bin. "That would have been one nasty fall. Can't have that."

He chuckled slightly, and Yuri looked up with deepest dread, finally putting her eyes on the owner of the voice.

Her eyes slowly getting accustomed to the darkness, she could see he was very pale and thin, his ribcage clearly visible through the skin of his torso, which was completely unclothed. In fact, the only article of clothing visible upon him were a pair of ragged, dirty pants on his legs.

He was seemingly unbothered by the cold weather, as evidenced by the gentle expression on his face, flashing her a kind smile with cold, blue eyes staring directly at hers, with dark patches underneath. His head was shaved completely bald, and he was indeed holding a knife, larger than any she'd seen before.

He reminded her vaguely of a bigger version of Smeagol from The Lord of The Rings books and movies, with his very human facial features placed in a strange juxtapostion to the rest of his very inhuman body. He crouched down to get on her eye level, and completed the comparison between the fictional former hobbit in the way his knees jutted out to the sides, as he balanced his body on his bare toes.

But as more and more features of his body became clear to her in the darkness, she quickly realized that he was far more horrifying than Smeagol.

Scars were littering nearly every available space on his body, thin lines stretching along his thin skin in rows of four with a fifth one intersecting them.

Tally marks.

They were everywhere, on his bare chest, his arms, even some visible on the little skin she could see beneath his pant leg, and four big, deep gashes were displayed proudly across his forehead.

She lifted her hand to her mouth to suppress a gasp.

He kept staring at her, eyes gliding across her body, unperturbed by her look of horror as he seemed to be taking in her body.

"You're beautiful." He said at last, smiling at her.

She looked down, and realized in shock that her legs were spread beneath her dress in a very compromising position. Unable to drown out a loud sob, she hurried to cross her limbs, to block the view she was sure he was getting of her.

_What's he going to do to me?!_

He frowned slightly at seeing her movement, but it didn't seem like he was disappointed, just... concerned.

"Oh, no. No, no, no, you misunderstand my intentions, Miss." He said, in a distraught voice. "I am not one of those... _depraved miscreants,_ who prey on young women such as yourself. You haven't a thing to fear from me."

This didn't exactly ease her nerves as she kept up her wide-eyed stare at him, afraid to take her eyes off of him even for as long as a blink.

"How about we exchange names?" He said, smile creeping back on his face. "I feel that always helps me get closer to people, how about you?"

Even if Yuri knew how to respond, she doubted she would be able to find her voice.

"I'll start." He said, still keeping up that smile, possibly to show that he fully understood her fear. "My name, is Victor Zsasz. But you may call me Vic. And what might your name be?"

Zsasz looked expectantly at her, and Yuri tried opening her mouth to respond, terrified of angering him by keeping silent, but instead of words, a pathetic, highpitched girly whimper emerged, filling her up with despair.

"Shh. It's okay." Zsasz said, and reached a bony hand over to stroke her cheek, and brush aside some of her long, purple hair from the front of her face. She flinched at his touch. "Try taking in some deep breaths, and go at your own tempo. I know this is probably very stressful for you."

She tried following his advice, taking a couple of shaky breaths, before trying to speak again.

"Y-Y-Yuri." She managed to whisper.

"Yuri? What a pretty name." He said, and it seemed as if he meant it, with the way his eyes lit up in joy at hearing her voice. "Pretty name for a pretty girl. So, Yuri, how are you today?"

Gathering up the very little amount of courage she had left, Yuri chanced to speak up once again, hoping her voice wouldn't crack.

"A-are y-you going t-to k-k-k-" She swallowed. "-kill me?"

Zsasz lowered his head a bit, shadows darkening his expression. When he looked up again, his smile looked a lot more sad than before.

"Yes. I'm afraid that will ultimately be the unavoidable outcome of this encounter, Yuri. I'm sorry."

Yuri once again had to raise her hands to her face in order to muffle her own cries.

She was going to die. She was going to die by the hands of this madman, alone in an alley, with nobody coming to save her.

"But this is why I brought you in here, Yuri." Zsasz said, and she felt her head being raised to meet his eyes by a soft finger on her chin. "I wanted to get the chance to explain to you _why_ I'm going to do this for you. _Why_ it's necessary. So you can understand that this is really me doing you a favor, and then maybe, when I finally run my knife through you, you can rest easy knowing that this is all for the best, really."

She kept silent, staring at him. She knew she wasn't exactly the best when it came to contributing to conversations, but she liked to think other people would have trouble coming up with a response to that as well.

"I know what you're thinking." Zsasz went on. "That I'm just another lunatic, like the other criminal lowlifes in this city, no different from the clown or the reptile man or any of the others in their colourful costumes. But I'm not. Where they are agents of chaos and mayhem, my quest is a noble one. You see, I am humanity's saviour."

His eyes gained a dreamy look, clearly filled up with inspiration as he continued his speech.

"Humanity is rotten, Yuri. It's unsalvageable. We work our whole lives, trying desperately to gain an advantage over everyone else, trying to get what we've convinced ourselves has value, like cars, clothes, fame, success, money. We strive to get as many of these material objects as we possibly can, and for what? What does it all amount to?"

He looked expectantly at Yuri, who had no idea if the question was rhetorical, or if he actually wanted her to answer.

"Nothing, Yuri." He continued, confirming to her that it was the former. "No matter how much we claw towards ourselves with our greedy hands, we'll all eventually die, and it will all have been for nothing. Don't you see? We've been taught to cling on to life with everything we have, to get some semblance of control to our meaningless existance, but the truth is that none of us has any control. We all secretly crave death, but we've convinced ourselves that we don't. But that's okay. I don't blame you, Yuri, or anyone else for believing in what you've been taught your whole lives."

Zsasz raised his knife, and Yuri could see her own reflection in the blank surface of the blade. She thought she didn't look as scared as she felt inside.

"This," Zsasz said, and gestured to the knife. "This is my offer to humanity. This is control, a way to liberate ourselves from the misery early, and I am its willing tool. I am the hero who will free us all, and you, Yuri, are the latest lucky winner."

 _He's insane._ Yuri thought, and a feeling of hopelessness washed over her. Maybe if she could get an hour or two to clear her head and calm down, she could construct a good counter argument to why life wasn't worthless, and make it convincing too. But as of right now, her head was spinning endlessly, making her dizzy from all the stress of this situation, the lingering despair from the party earlier, and the intruding coldness from all around her. There was no way she would ever be able to come up with something to save her life, with a man this fanatically convinced that he was right.

But still, she had to at least try.

She gathered every last remaining bit of courage she could find, putting it into raising her hand, as if this was merely a question the teacher had asked for the class in school, that she had the answer for.

"Yes?" Zsasz acknowledged her, and like her teachers, he looked overjoyed at having her contribute to the conversation.

"M- Mr. Zsasz?" Her throat felt dry, and she attempted to swallow some nonexistant spit to lubricate it. "I- I have a q-question."

"Ask away, my dear, ask away. And please, call me Vic."

"R-right, sorry. V- Vic, you s-say that you're d- doing humanity a f- favor, by k- killing us quickly. B- b- but what about y- yourself? Y- you can't h- hope to ever be able t- to make a serious d- dent in our population, with j- just you and a knife. Is- isn't your life meaningless as w- well?"

It was the best argument she could come up with on such short notice and her current state of mind, but to her despair she saw Zsasz's smile widen, showcasing crooked, yellow teeth.

"Excellent point, Yuri!" He exclaimed, and she flinched as he reached forwards to pat her head appreciatively. "I knew you were an intelligent girl from the moment I laid eyes on you. You're right, of course, my point can seem a bit hypocritical to some at first glance. But as you can see from the marks across my body, I've helped a great many people realize their true potential, and it's the knowledge that however small it may seem in the long run, I am making a positive impact that keeps me going. My own life matters not, I readily realize and accept that, and by the time my inevitable demise arrives, I shall embrace it with open arms. But before that, I'll make sure to take as many unfortunate souls like you with me as I am able."

Yuri stared at him, lost for words yet again. It seemed as if Zsasz took it to mean she was confused by something he'd said.

"I take it you're wondering about these scars, and their meaning?" He gestured to the carved tally marks all over his body. He didn't wait for her to respond, before going on. "It's my way of honouring the brave men, women and children who were lucky enough to give their lives for my cause."

Yuri hadn't thought it was possible for her to get anymore shocked or disgusted, but this man had somehow managed to constantly one-up himself throughout this entire conversation.

"A-are they all...?" She started, but was unable to finish as the realization dawned on her.

"I make one for every life I take." Zsasz said in a contemplative voice, idly running his fingers over a few of the scars. "It's my way to ensure their sacrifice will always be remembered. Each mark symbolizes another step towards the ultimate upcoming salvation."

"D-doesn't it h-hurt?" Yuri asked in quiet incomprehension. She couldn't even imagine doing something like this to herself over and over again like he clearly had.

Zsasz looked at her thoughtfully.

"Yes. It hurts every time, but it's necessary, Yuri. If not for the pain, I wouldn't be paying proper respect to the souls I free. It's because of the pain that I am able to remember the names of each and every one of them. And if some of them fade away over time, I need only to open up one of them again, to instantly recall them. And just like everyone else here, I will make sure to treasure your mark, Yuri. I promise you that. Look!"

He pointed a thin finger towards four vertical scars right on the top side of the left side of his chest, tracing a line through them.

"This is where you'll be!" He said, with the same tone of voice as that of a parent hyping up Santa coming down the chimney on Christmas. "You'll be the one to end this particular cycle, before it starts all over again! Aren't you _lucky?!"_

Reminded once again of her rapidly approaching doom coming ever closer towards her, Yuri couldn't help it. She burst into tears yet again, without being able to stop herself from crying.

_I'm going to die._

"Oh, Yuri." Zsasz said sadly, and she felt his cold finger stroking away the tears from her cheeks. "Don't be upset. It's really not as bad as you think. Aren't you tired? I was watching you from afar, when you were hiding from the rain in that bus stop. You didn't look very happy, and I could tell something bad happened today. And correct me if I'm wrong, but I get the feeling this happens pretty often to you?"

A few sobs escaped her mouth as she looked up at Zsasz in surprise at his deduction, seeing him still smiling that seemingly kind grin, although she could tell now that it wasn't even close to reaching his dead, blue-eyed stare.

"It feels awful, doesn't it?" He asked, voice full of sympathy. "The utter hopelessness that comes with having a bad day, the feeling of the whole world being against you. Is it worth it, Yuri? How many more bad days do you think you'll be able to take, feeling like this? Wouldn't it be better to just... let go, and not have to worry about feeling like that anymore? I offer you an easy way out, Yuri. A way where you won't have to deal with loss, or heartbreak, ever again."

Yuri couldn't help thinking his words over despite herself. It was true that even before this man had forcefully inserted himself into her life, she'd been feeling pretty down, and not just because of the debacle with Caleb. She wasn't sure she enjoyed being friendless, an outsider. Sometimes it did come in handy, but sometimes she wished she could stop being such an anxious wreck, who even though she thought her hair was getting way too long, was too afraid of the reaction a haircut would get from the other students, not to mention just going to the hairdresser in the first place to describe how she wanted it cut.

Was that any way to live, being in this constant state of fear, anxiety and nerves?

She'd made so many mistakes in her life, most recently with Caleb, and the results had been devastating. And based on her past, she was sure she would find another boy where she would probably screw up everything yet again. Wasn't she better off just accepting Zsasz's offer, to put an end to this suffering?

_No._

She didn't have to entertain the thought for long before another side of her, stronger than she'd ever thought herself capable of being, took hold of her. She couldn't decide life wasn't worth living based on a few bad boyfriend experiences alone. There were plenty more fish in the sea, so to speak, and if she could just get over herself, and actually try _talking_ to the people in her school, she had no doubt that she could find a new one in a heartbeat. And even if every single last one of them turned out as a gut-wrenching breakup, _so what?_ There was way more to her life than trying to find a boyfriend, and she could not, _would not,_ let simple crushes define her existence.

She looked up to stare directly into the eyes of the mass-murderer in front of her, refusing to blink.

"I want to live." She said, surprising herself by how fearless she sounded, even as the tears continued to stream down her face. "I don't want to die."

Victor Zsasz widened his eyes in surprise, before sighing.

"Disappointing." Zsasz said. "But not unexpected. I understand you're afraid, Yuri. It's not easy to let go of the built in instinct one has to fear death. I get it. You're probably scared of the pain, of how much my knife will hurt you."

"T-that's not it! I- I just don't w-want to die!" Yuri exclaimed, despair grabbing hold of her mind again as her newly gained confidence drained away as quickly as it had arrived, leaving her alone with the all too familiar fear. She started crying again, as it seemed like Zsasz was just completely ignoring her.

"You have nothing to fear, Yuri. Here, I'll show you. Help you understand what I mean. Look."

With some effort, Yuri managed to wipe away enough tears to be able to see the horrible man in front of her somewhat clearly. Her eyes widened as she saw him raise the tip of his blade towards the four scars he'd just showed her.

"Pay close attention, Yuri." He said kindly, then slowly dragged the knife through them.

Yuri felt sick, she wanted to puke, but she couldn't look away. It felt terrible, seeing the knife puncture the skin, drawing a big, red line across it, with red liquid protuding freely, and dripping plentily down his torso, staining it in scarlet.

But she couldn't avert her eyes no matter how hard she tried, her morbid curiosity getting the better of her.

The mark having been made, Zsasz lifted the blade from his skin, breathing heavily.

"Ahh." He sighed, and Yuri could hear downright pleasure from his exhale, could see his blue eyes roll around madly before they once again focused on her.

"And now, it's your turn." He reached down, and she felt his cold hand grab hold of her wrist, pulling her bare arm up towards himself. "Try to keep an open mind. You might discover something surprising about yourself."

"W-wait, w-what are you do-" She started, confused about what his intentions were, feeling uncomfortable as she always did when other people touched her without warning, before Zsasz raised his knife high into the air, and, before she had a chance to properly understand the situation and react accordingly to it, he quickly plunged the blade down, making contact and penetrating the skin of her arm.

To her surprise, it didn't hurt as much as she expected, feeling the cold steel deep below her skin, getting dragged by Zsasz in a rough, forceful line through her flesh. She couldn't even describe what it really felt like, even if she tried.

That didn't stop her from throwing caution to the wind, ignore Zsasz's warning of the consequenses, and scream as loudly as she was able.

The sight alone felt so _wrong,_ seeing the tip of the blade disappear into her limb, observing the rivers of blood already bursting forth, trickling down the sides of her arm. It was a sight she'd never wanted to see done to anyone, especially not herself, but it had the same hypnotic effect on her that Zsasz's cut did, making it impossible to look away while hearing her own shrill scream in her ears, echoing against the walls of the buildings in the alleyway.

Zsasz tried speaking, but his voice was easily drowned out by Yuri's volume, which surprised even her.

And then, Zsasz at last decided to put an abrupt end to the noise by once again pressing his hand against her mouth, forcing her to look away from her mutilated arm, and stare into his icy eyes once more.

"A pity." He whispered to her, his voice filled with silent fury as he turned his head from side to side. "I did so enjoy talking to you, and I had hoped you could have been a bit more mature about what I was trying to show you, but alas. I trust you recall what I said would happen, should you scream?"

He raised his knife once again. Yuri found herself unable to really care much.

The world around her seemed to blur and spin around her, making it incredibly hard to focus on what was going on around her, and what was even real. Even Zsasz's voice didn't seem like he was right in front of her, sounding muffled, ethereal and far away. Maybe this really was nothing but a dream she would wake up from in a moment's notice.

Her arm was beginning to tingle weirdly.

 _It really didn't hurt as much as I thought it would, getting stabbed._ She thought, deliriously.

Was this what going into shock felt like? Or maybe she was already dying from the bloodloss. Seemed weird to do that from the relatively minor injury she'd been exposed to, but it wasn't like she was an expert on medical stuff.

Her eyelids felt so heavy, and she could hardly even feel the cold anymore. Couldn't she just go to sleep already?

"Goodbye, Yuri." Zsasz said, sounding miles away still. "A shame it had to end this way, but I shall forever treasure your sacrifice, and remember you fondly. You have my word."

With some effort, she opened her eyes enough to somewhat focus on Zsasz again. If this really was real, she felt disappointed that the last thing she saw would be his hideous face with those four gashes in his forehead and the psychotic, merciless blue eyes, but oh well.

Then, a slight movement from behind Zsasz made her open her eyes some more, and try to focus.

_What... what am I looking at?_

It was like watching something straight out of a nightmare, seeing the black figure emerge soundlessly from the shadows behind Zsasz, like a demon from Hell.

Its movements were smooth, looking like it was made of the shadows themselves, blending in with the black environment perfectly before she could make out something of a distinctive shape as it approached them steadily from behind.

It was vaguely humanoid, but only slightly. While it had the build of a rather large man, she could clearly see the glowing, empty white eyes of something obviously inhuman. She'd been surprisingly right on the money with the demon comparison, as she could clearly see long, pointed horns jutting straight upwards from the figure's head.

It was standing right next to Zsasz now, who was slowly raising his knife, still speaking in that muffled voice she couldn't even hear anymore, getting ready to plunge it straight into her body, oblivious to the being of living shadow right behind him. Maybe she was the only person who could see it? Was this the creature that had come to escort her soul to wherever it would go after her body died, having arrived early to watch? Was she looking at Death itself?

Then, it spoke up, and she found that she could hear clearly again, taking in its deep, masculine voice.

"Get the hell away from her, Zsasz."

Shock and fear washed over Zsasz's face, as he flung his head backwards, taking in the large figure behind him.

"No!" He yelled in frustration, and lunged at the figure with his knife, moving so fast his arm was a blur, but clearly not fast enough as the figure intercepted it with little effort, grabbing hold of the murderer's wrist with a gauntleted hand, before pushing away Zsasz so hard, he collided against the wall of the building on the opposite end of the alleyway.

Zsasz was already getting to his feet again, swiftly recovering from the impact, and somehow having managed to maintain his grip on the knife. He was breathing heavily, staring at the figure in barely contained anger.

The figure calmly turned around to face him, and Yuri noticed a long, jagged cape, as black as the rest of its body from the figure's shoulders, moving along with him, flowing softly above the ground.

"You almost got away, Zsasz." The figure said in that calm, modulated voice, showing that it had no concern about the killer staring it down. "You know how to cover your tracks, and though I knew you had to be somewhere in this area from your last victim, it's unlikely I would have ever found you."

Zsasz released a primal, angry yell, charging at the caped figure like a bull, with his knife raised, but the figure swiftly moved out of his path, and instead of making contact with the figure like he intended, all he got was a fist to his face, making him fall to the ground with a groan.

Rising again with some effort, Yuri saw that Zsasz's nose was bleeding.

"You shouldn't have gone for this girl. It was stupid for someone who's normally as careful as you." The figure spoke again, in the same tone of voice, taunting him. "Too risky. You couldn't hope to control her well enough, and because of that mistake, you're done here."

"Get away from me, Batman!" Zsasz snarled, but there was something like a desperate pleading in his tone of voice as well. Yuri realized he was terrified. "I need to save this poor woman from her own meaningless existence!"

"You don't even believe that yourself, Zsasz." The figure that Yuri now knew to be the infamous vigilante of her city, said. She hadn't even been sure if he'd been real before, and here he was, standing right in front of her. "You're nothing more than a sadistic serial killer with masochistic tendencies. You got addicted to cutting marks into your own body, so you made up some inane, nihilistic reasoning to tell your victims, trying to convince yourself as much as them that you're serving some higher purpose, instead of being the lowly street rat you so clearly are."

"I already made the mark!" Zsasz screamed, and began making a desperate break straight for Yuri, his eyes wide and deranged. "I _need_ to kill her!"

Batman easily intercepted him before he got close, knocking the air from his chest with a kick to his stomach.

The force of his boot was enough to make Zsasz loose his grip on the knife, making it fly through the air, landing with a loud clanging on the ground right next to Yuri. She stared at it in surprise, before she automatically reached down to pick it up, and hide it in her purse.

 _At least now he can't use it against Batman._ She justified her action in her head.

Not that it looked like the Dark Knight really needed the advantage.

Zsasz was on his knees, reeling from the kick, trying to push air into his lungs with rattling breaths. He was still staring Yuri directly in the eyes, but it didn't look as if he was physically capable of going after her again.

That didn't exactly ease her nerves, however.

Batman started approaching him from behind, forcefully pushing the defeated killer forward, positioning him to lie face down on the ground. Zsasz let it happen, without resisting.

"The mark..." Zsasz muttered madly. "I already made the mark, Batman. The cycle has been ended prematurely. There's a mistake permanently staining my body, my temple..."

"I don't care." Batman said harshly, contempt in his otherwise calm voice, as he bent down to cuff Zsasz's arms. "Your body is littered in nothing but mistakes."

Zsasz didn't respond to that, instead starting to sob in grief against the ground his head was resting on. Like a child, denied of his wishes by a stern parent. He didn't seem as scary now, only... pitiful.

"Get up." Batman said, dragging the killer to stand upwards, and then pushing him forwards, out of the alleyway with his hand on the man's neck, disappearing from Yuri's view, making everything around her deadly quiet.

She should probably get up, away from here. As she'd just been made forcefully aware of, it was dangerous to be out on the streets of Gotham this late, and she knew there were plenty of types like Zsasz around, lurking in the shadows.

But it was like she'd forgotten how to move her own body, the shock of being in this whole situation and living through it having seemingly paralyzed her every limb. She would be powerless against anyone who would come this way to find her, especially now that her protector had left.

A throbbing in her arm interrupted her from her thoughts, and she looked down only to be met with the straight, bleeding line on her arm. It was hard for her to think that mess of blood and gore was a part of her now.

A faint rustling nearby made her look up, and her heart jumped straight into her throat when she saw Batman directly in front of her, staring down at her with those empty, glowing eyes, his return having been so quiet that it was only the faint sound of his cape in the air that had alerted her to his presence.

He still looked like a demon to her, shrouded in black shadows, the horns jutting sharply upwards.

But then he lowered himself slowly to her eye level, and she saw the bright yellow outline surrounding a stylized black bat stretched across his dark gray chest. What was more, she now saw that only the outside of his cape, the part of it that she'd seen with his back to her, was black as the darkest night. But the inside of it, the part she could see now, was surprisingly... purple. A very dark, and faded shade of purple, but still unmistakably purple.

Her favorite colour.

The realization that the man wasn't just clad in the intimidating color of pure blackness as she'd thought filled her with enough courage to look at his face to see that despite the scary, monstrous look of the cowl with the horns and the glowing eyes, a very normal, very _human_ chin was clearly visible from below it, and as she saw the thin lips of his mouth, it was as if her fear washed away from her.

_He's a normal human. A normal human who's going to help me._

"Are you okay?" He asked, not employing the hard voice he'd used against Zsasz, but instead a softer voice, filled with worry.

Yuri merely stared at him in response.

 _This is the part where you're supposed to answer him, Yuri._ She thought, her accusing, frustrated thoughts echoing against her head. _Say "Yes, Mr. Batman, I'm fine, thanks for asking." Don't just glare at him like an idiot._

Yuri opened her mouth to say something that would hopefully make her seem as smart and intelligent as people kept insisting she was, while at the same time portraying herself as a dignified and capable strong woman.

"Yuh- you're Buh- Batman?"

Well, there went that opportunity. Where was the nearest hole she could crawl into and die from embarrassment?

Mercifully, the man refrained from commenting on her braindead outburst, instead tilting his head towards her injured arm. His mouth seemed to tighten in anger.

"I'm sorry I didn't prevent this."

Yuri blinked. How could any of this be perceived as even vaguely _his_ fault? It was her who'd foolishly decided to traverse the dark streets of Gotham so late, even after she'd heard of all the dangers this endeavor would entail.

Batman reached behind himself, and procured a waterbottle from seemingly out of nowhere while taking hold of Yuri's arm with his other hand. For some reason she didn't mind it when he touched her. Perhaps because she knew, instinctually, that she could trust him completely?

"Your cut isn't that bad, all things considered." He said, as he inspected the wound, and began unscrewing the cap on the bottle. "I think Zsasz just wanted to show you what it felt like, that in his twisted mind it could make you understand his actions. It's shallow, and shouldn't be too serious if cleaned properly."

He tipped the bottle, and Yuri shivered as the cold liquid washed over her arm, clearing the blood away, leaving only the glistening red line which she now could see was a lot smaller and thinner than she'd thought.

"You must have surprised him by screaming." Batman said, and reached into a compartment on the yellow belt he wore around his waist, aquiring a smaller, brown bottle. He looked up, the empty eyes of his cowl making contact with hers. "It was a very brave thing you did, risking his anger to call for help. Most people wouldn't have done the same."

Yuri averted her eyes from his, blushing in embarrassment. Sure they would. She didn't feel very brave for screaming her head off the moment she felt pain, which now turned out to be even less serious than she'd thought.

She heard the gentle pop of another cap being pulled off, and looked up again.

"I'm going to apply some Iodine to the cut, just to be completely sure it's clean before I wrap it up." Batman said. "This might sting a little."

The moment he applied it, she felt a burning sensation surge through her arm, and grit her teeth to avoid crying out in front of Batman, who had enough to worry about at the moment without having to deal with a crybaby like her.

Finally, he started wrapping up the wound with a roll of bandages which had also been taken from the belt that Yuri was starting to understand was a lot more spacious than it looked.

"That's the best I can do for now." The Caped Crusader stated, and helped Yuri to her feet again. Said feet felt unsure on the ground after having been dormant for so long, and she was thankful for the hand he was keeping on her shoulder to prevent her from collapsing. "As long as you make sure to change the bandages every other day or so, you should be good. You should expect it to leave a scar, however."

Yuri wanted to thank him, show her gratitude to the towering hero by her side, who had done so much for her, truly going above and beyond what was necessary after saving her life.

But even if she thought she could trust herself to say anything intelligible, it hardly mattered as she found herself completely speechless. Her mind was like a vast library filled up with millions of great, beautiful words from all the books she'd read in her life, and yet she couldn't find a single one capable of describing the raw emotions she was experiencing right now. It felt like she was going to burst from keeping them bottled up like this, unless she found a way to express them _right now._

She did something very sudden and spontaneous, both of which she wasn't known for, and would have been downright frightened if anyone tried doing it to her.

She threw her arms around Batman, hugging him tight.

He seemed to freeze up at her embrace, probably as surprised as she was at her own unpredictable reaction.

She pressed the side of her head against the smooth surface of the bat emblem on his chest, closing her eyes as she took in the various textures of his suit against her skin, and reveled in the fact that she for once wasn't taller than the individual she was hugging, something she hadn't experienced since the last time she'd hugged her parents.

He somewhat awkwardly placed his arms around her as well, and she started crying again, not from fear since she at this moment felt safer and more secure than she'd ever been in her entire life, but just from being this overwhelmed emotionally.

"Th- thank you!" Yuri managed to blurt out between sobs. "Th- thank you so, s- so, much!"

He didn't respond, which she was thankful for. Instead, he just stood still and kept his arms around her for a few minutes, before they finally separated again.

"You shouldn't be out here on the streets this late." He said after a few seconds, no hint in his voice of the moment they'd just shared. "It's not safe."

"I know." Yuri said, lowering her head in shame, and fidgeted a bit with her hair like she'd used to do when her dad would chastise her for doing something wrong. "I'm sorry."

"How far away do you live?"

She told him.

"Hm. That's some distance to walk in this weather, dressed like that." He said, making her blush. She probably seemed like such a stereotypical irresponsible party girl to him. "How about I give you a ride?"

She looked up in shock at the prospect of being in the same car as the Batman, once again speechless.

"Come on." Batman said, waving a hand to signal for her to follow him out of the alleyway. "I'll feel better if I see you get home safely, and that's not likely to happen if you continue going the way you were. Even if you manage to avoid more muggers, it'll be the pneumonia that gets you."

She obeyed, staying a little behind his flapping cape as he led her out of the alleyway and into the light of the street where she'd been before Zsasz had grabbed her. She noted the colourful mush of dissolved cupcake in the puddle where she'd dropped it, the red-frosted words long gone. Yuri's stomach growled a bit, mourning the fact that she'd never even gotten to taste it.

Then, she looked up and gasped when she saw what was parked at the side of the road right in front of her, the wasted cupcake immediately forgotten.

Yuri knew nothing about cars, had never been interested in the mechanics of them, or models, or anything of that sort. As long as they could manage to drive her places, it didn't even matter to her if it was a tiny, compact two-person electric car, or a limosine. She just didn't care about them at all.

And even she could tell that the Batmobile was something else entirely.

It almost looked _alive,_ with the way it was humming faintly, front lights painting the road bright orange. It was longer than any car she'd seen before, which made her wonder how exactly it handled the sharp turns that undoubtedly came up in Batman's line of work, if the rumors she'd heard were correct.

The Batmobile was coated in black all over, the metal clean and blank to the point of being shiny, and Yuri caught her own awed expression reflected back at her. She noted the two giant fins jutting out at the back end of it, shaped liked that of a bat's wings, and miniature versions of his chest emblem were embedded in the middle of the wheels, which by all means _should_ have looked really silly, but it somehow worked.

Yuri had never been one to be impressed by flashy, expensive looking cars, but even she had to admit that this _beast-like_ contraption was equal parts slick, elegant, imposing and just plain _cool._

And she was going to ride in it. With Batman!

A loud _whoosh_ emerging from the Batmobile startled her, making her flinch as the black-toned windows and ceiling in the middle of the car slid back smoothly, revealing two black seats right behind a mess of glowing buttons and a stylized bat-shaped steering wheel at the front of the left seat.

Batman gestured for her to take her seat at the right side, and she rather awkwardly raised a shaky leg to get inside the doorless cockpit, scared of accidently scraping against the outside with her shoes. In the back of her mind she thought about the childhood warning against getting in cars with strange men, but it was completely absurd to even consider that rule applying to Batman and the Batmobile, so naturally she ignored it.

Once she'd settled herself in the lush black leather seat, Batman effortlessly slid in as well in one smooth, fluid motion. As the ceiling with the windows slid down upon them once more, she felt the shocking sensation of automatic seatbelts sliding over her, securing her body and scaring her half to death.

Yuri felt the vibrations of the motor roaring to life, saw the faint glowing of the buttons on the dashboard became the only light source in the small cabin, and felt her body being tilted back against the seat by the forward momentum of the car moving.

Yuri carefully placed her hands firmly on her knees in an effort to keep herself from touching anything, and looked out the window to see the surroundings of the city zoom by at great speed.

A strange, unfamiliar sensation took hold of her as she observed the blurred cityscape from the windows, and she soon realized that for the first time since... tonight? No, ever since she'd gotten that party invite really, she felt calm. Her heart was beating at a steady pace instead of hammering against her chest, her hands were perfectly steady, resting on her knees. The faint vibrations and white noise from the small bumps in the road served as a great way to keep her normally speeding thoughts at bay, and it was incredibly relaxing to be able to just sit, and not have to worry about anything like her fear of the dangers lurking in the city.

She was in the Batmobile, right next to the Batman himself. She doubted if even the President in the White House could boast of being in a safer space than she was right now, and she started feeling the shadow of a smile creep over her face.

She couldn't even remember the last time she'd felt as calm and at peace as she was now. It was... nice.

Then, the smile turned into a frown once she began feeling the itchiness of the cut underneath her bandaged arm. Now that the adrenaline pumping through her body since she'd been dragged into that alley was wearing off, it was really starting to become apparent just how uncomfortable it was, having the wound.

It was downright unbearable, actually, feeling the throbbing against the tight bandages, and she moved her other hand to fidget a bit with the white material, trying to make them a bit looser in order to keep the irritation at bay...

She gasped silently once she felt the unexpected sensation of a gloved hand's gentle, but firm grip around her wrist, effectively putting a stop to her fidgeting, and she turned her head to see Batman, not even looking at her even as he'd reached out to grab her.

"You should leave the bandages be for now." He said kindly, still not a hint of blame, annoyance or sternness in his voice. He loosened the grip around her wrist, and retracted his arm. "You'll risk contaminating the wound if you disturb it too much."

Yuri nodded to show she understood, and felt her face grow red hot in embarrassment. He was right, it had been foolish of her to try tampering with them, no matter how uncomfortable they felt. She was supposed to be smarter than that.

She rubbed a bit at her wrist, the shock of feeling Batman's touch there still lingering idly. She looked over at the man.

It was such a welcome change from the norm, to have someone drive her who _didn't_ try to start all sorts of small talk she would struggle to respond to. It was nice for once to not feel pressured to contribute with her own poor conversational skills.

She let her eyes drift over her savior, drinking in every detail of him. To imagine that she'd actually thought him to be a demon when she'd first laid eyes on him. It was clear to her now that he had zero intentions to harm her or any other innocent people, and that his terrifying look was meant for the criminals only.

She could feel deep admiration for him swirling inside her, making her heart beat just a little faster as she remembered how calm he'd been earlier talking to Zsasz, not raising his voice one bit when they'd fought.

She could really appreciate the stoicism of him, looking at his neutral mouth expression, taking in the sharp jawline and cheekbones visible beneath the cowl.

Her gaze then drifted downwards, away from his face, where she started examining the huge biceps of his arms holding onto the steering wheel, noted how impressive his muscles were, bulging visibly beneath his suit, and felt a strong desire for him to touch her again...

She quickly snapped her head back to stare robotically out of the window once she recognized the all too familiar feeling inside her chest, and tried to will her breathing and heartbeat back to the relaxed state she'd been in before, refusing to look back at Batman for even a second.

 _Stop it. Get a hold of yourself, Yuri._ She chastised herself mentally. _You are NOT developing a crush on BATMAN of all people!_

If she'd been red in the face before, she was positive her face had to be almost _glowing_ scarlet now, feeling how searing hot it was. She was thankful for the darkness of the car hiding her flushed expression from the would-be person of her desires.

This was even worse than the crush she'd had on her teacher. She tried desperately to think of something, _anything_ else to distract herself, since even ignoring how utterly insane it was of her to even _think_ about Batman that way, getting attracted to another person _this_ soon after Caleb, was just her being a glutton for punishment.

Then, at long last, a thought struck her. A thing she'd been idly wondering about for a while now, that thankfully had nothing to do with her treacherous heart.

She leaned her head back to look around, but it seemed these two seats were the only compartment of the car as her eyes met nothing but wall.

"Uhm. E- excuse me." She started, hesitating as she wondered if she even wanted to know the answer to this question.

Batman said nothing, keeping his unsettling empty-eyed glowing gaze locked on the road in front of him as he drove. Yuri decided despite herself to keep going.

"W- what did you d- do to, uhm." She swallowed. "Z- Zsasz?"

"He's fastly secured in the back." Batman spoke, his voice as calm as it had been throughout all of this.

Yuri's eyes widened, and she looked around again in panic, as if she expected her would-be killer's face would suddenly come into view.

"H- he's in here with us?!" She whispered in disbelief.

"The back of the car is heavily fortified, to the point where not even a missile could penetrate it." Batman said. "It's completely soundproof, too, so he can't hear any of what we're saying. An alarm will go off if he somehow breaks out of his restraints, and I'm monitoring his every movement through a live feed in my cowl. Once I drop you home safe, I'm taking him straight to Arkham."

His reassurances did nothing to calm Yuri's nerves. What should have been the biggest moment of her life was tainted horribly by the knowledge that she was sharing space with someone like Zsasz, and nothing could change that, no matter how many precautions Batman said he'd taken.

"Arkham? Y- you're just taking him back to that place?" Her voice sounded shrill, and she couldn't quite manage to keep out the hint of blame in it. "H- he won't face a- any consequences f- for his crimes?"

Batman tilted his head slightly to the side, as if giving her a sideways glance.

"It won't be without consequences." He said. "He's going to be locked up in heavy isolation, monitored 24/7 inside one of the most secure locations in Gotham City. I will provide some of my own tech to make sure he _stays_ in there this time, and do everything in my power to make sure he never sees the light of day again. Victor Zsasz _will_ face justice, and I promise you he won't _ever_ hurt you again."

Yuri looked out of the front window again, fighting back tears. She didn't want to argue with anyone, least of all her saviour who had done so much for her already. Still, she couldn't help but think Batman was being incredibly naive.

How often had she seen the news articles of lunatics being put in Arkham only to escape a few months, or sometimes even weeks later? The reports on The Joker alone probably racked up in the hundreds. How many times would they have to break out, how many people would they _hurt,_ before they realized that locking them up wasn't a lasting solution?

"Y- you could have ended it tonight." She muttered, her voice little more than a whisper. "You c- could have put a stop to him, permanently."

Generally, Yuri liked to look for the best in people, even if she hadn't personally experienced a lot of it, since it was hardly fair for a person as asocial as her to judge another, normal person. She liked to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, and did believe in self-improvement and redemption, before jumping to any of the more drastic punishments.

But at the same time... she'd seen the marks on Zsasz's body, each one showcasing an innocent life having been laid to waste by his hands. She'd seen the complete lack of regret on his face when he'd talked about his actions, and she knew that for some people, people like him, helping wasn't an option. There was only one working way to put a stop to the suffering these people inflicted.

"That's not my call to make." Batman said simply. "Victor Zsasz is a very sick man, and the doctors will do their best to get him the help he needs at the Asylum."

Yuri didn't know what was going on with her, how she kept wanting to argue with him when normally she hardly even dared to raise her hand in class. It was like being in this car, side by side with a living urban legend was filling her up with confidence and a sense of empowerment, even if it was somewhat tainted by the presence of Zsasz behind them.

It was an incredibly freeing feeling, and yet terrifying at the same time.

"D- do you really think s- someone like him _can_ be h- helped?" Yuri asked.

"No." He said, and if it wasn't her imagination playing tricks on her, Yuri thought she could see his glowing eyes narrow a bit, see as his fists tightened around the steering wheel. "I've known Zsasz for some time now, and I can honestly say that I don't think there's any hope of redemption for him. He's too far gone for any help to reach."

Yuri swallowed. She had probably overstayed her welcome by interrogating him like this, but she _had_ to know.

"T- then _why?"_ She asked in a whisper. " _Why_ let him continue living?"

"It's not my call to make, to decide who deserves to die." Batman repeated, keeping his eyes dead set on the road. "It can't _ever_ be my call to make. The best I can do is make sure I save as many people I can from danger, and bring in the monsters responsible, but I can't be their executioner. Because once I cross that line..."

He hesitated, then turned his head to look directly at her, his empty white eyes meeting hers.

"...I won't be able to come back from it."

He turned his head to the road ahead again, and nothing but white noise could be heard next. Yuri turned her head as well to look out the window, her heart pounding after hearing his words.

She thought she could understand his reasoning now. She wouldn't say she necessarily _agreed_ with Batman, but she understood, and respected it enough to end their discussion like this, as she tried to just enjoy what remained of the ride.

Which didn't turn out to be very much, as all too soon the Batmobile took a turn into her neighborhood, and she could see her house in the distance.

"This is where you live, right?" Batman asked, speaking up for the first time since the end of their argument.

"Y- yes. Just up ahead." Yuri said.

The Batmobile slowed down to a stop right next to her driveway, and she took a deep breath as the roof of the car slid away, letting her breathe in the cold night air once more. It was a good thing it was late enough for her neighbors to turn the lights in their homes off, so they wouldn't see Batman on their street.

Yuri wanted to stay in the calming seat of the car, but got up regardless, struggling to climb out of it. When she looked to her side, she saw Batman already stood by her fence, having gotten out completely soundlessly.

He spoke up when she approached him.

"Are your parents home?"

"No, they're... gone. I live alone." She said quietly and looked at her feet. She'd mostly gotten over the pain of them dying years ago, but it still left a lingering sense of mourning whenever someone brought them up.

"I'm sorry." Batman said, and there was something in his voice that convinced her that he meant it. Too often had she heard those words with no sympathy behind them whatsoever, so it meant a lot to her when she got the real deal.

That didn't give her the knowledge on how to respond to them any better however, and so she merely nodded.

"Here." He said, and Yuri looked up to see Batman handing her a white card. She hesitantly reached out to take it, and read the big, bold letters:

**DR. LESLIE THOMPKINS' CLINIC**

There was a phone number, address and a bat symbol beneath it.

"If you ever feel the need to... talk, about what happened to you tonight, I urge you to visit her. Just hand her this card, and she'll understand everything."

Yuri nodded again, but mentally she'd already decided not to do anything of the sort. She didn't like doctors very much, and wanted nothing more than to forget this night ever happened, instead of reliving it with anyone. She put the card in her purse.

"Stay safe. Don't go around Gotham at night again." Batman turned to leave for the car again.

Yuri looked after him. Already she could feel the anxiety return to her, the confidence she'd gotten in the car swiftly leaving her body. This would be her last chance to do this, since it would be extremely improbable that she would ever get this opportunity again.

"W- wait!" Yuri called out, using all of her willpower to speak up.

Batman stopped, tilting his head back, looking over his shoulder at her expectantly.

Feeling extremely stupid, Yuri tried to state her request.

"I- I'm sorry, but, uh..." She hesitated.

_Stop stammering! Don't waste his time more than you already are!_

"...I, I know you're probably busy, but-"

_Get to the point!_

"...can I get another hug?" She asked, her voice sounding incredibly hoarse as her mouth had all but dried out. She swallowed. "Uh, please? Before you leave?"

She could feel her face flush as Batman remained unmoving. She'd finally done it, after all this time of being a good victim, riding with Batman in the Batmobile without being too annoying, she'd finally managed to weird out the superhero like she did everyone else, by being... Yuri.

She closed her eyes in embarrassment, reaching up to stroke her long hair a bit, pulling it in front of her face, hiding behind it like she had a habit of doing when she messed up a conversation.

"N- never mind." She spoke in a far too squeaky voice, wanting nothing more than the sweet embrace of death to get her out of this. "I- ignore me. It w- was a s- stupid idea a- anyway-"

She was caught off guard when she felt big, strong arms around her, and opened her eyes in surprise to see the Bat Symbol right in front of her face, as she was embraced noiselessly by Batman.

She couldn't understand why, but she didn't question it as she too threw her arms around him once more, the feeling of safety once again finding her as he held her. She realized that she no longer had confusing feelings about him, as the hug went on for what felt like hours, even days. As long as she had this moment with him, it didn't matter that they could never be together.

This was all she would ever need from him again.

Then, the moment was over, way too soon, and Batman broke the hug.

Yuri looked after him as he wordlessly walked back to the car, and without another sound, disappeared into the night without a trace of having ever even been there, leaving her to stand dumbfounded on her driveway, alone.

And with the departure of the Batmobile, so too went the last remaining traces of her bravery.

The darkness in the windows of her neighbors' houses didn't seem that reassuring now. She looked around her deathly quiet street, and thought everywhere looked like a spot where a Zsasz could suddenly emerge from, knife raised as he ran towards her, no Batman to save her this time.

She turned on the spot to half-walk, half-run towards the front door of the house, trying not to look as panicked as she felt whilst zipping open the small sideroom on her purse where she kept her wallet and house keys.

Her heart nearly stopped when the shaking of her hands caused her to drop the keys on the ground, forcing her to bend down and fumble after them for what felt like an eternity, feeling more vulnerable than she could remember ever feeling before in those few seconds.

At last, she managed to pick them up and plunge them into the keyhole by holding onto them tightly with both hands, the logic behind it being that if she held them hard enough, they wouldn't shake so much. Even so, it took way too long in her mind to finally unlock the door, get inside, fumble for the light switch and slam the door shut again, locking it as fast as she could.

She leaned against the door in exhaustion, closing her eyes as she tried her best to take deep breaths to calm her pounding heart. Her knees felt wobbly, and she was tempted to just slide down into a sitting position right here, right now, until she would be able to function properly again, or at least function as well as she had before.

But she knew she couldn't. There were a hundred things to do now, that she couldn't neglect just because she felt scared. She needed to change out of this ridiculous dress as soon as possible, and if she could resist the urge to just burn it outright, she would hide it away like the dirty, embarrasing secret it was, making sure it never saw the light of day again. Then she would need some food, as even though she still had no appetite to speak of, she was smart enough to realize that going without sustenance for this long _probably_ wasn't very healthy.

First off though, she needed to calm down. Her nerves were stretched thin, and her paranoia was going through the roof. Rationally, she knew that she had made sure all doors and windows had been locked before she'd gone to the party, but she still needed to check every room, just to be safe.

She sighed as she with some effort walked away from the door, and got to work.

After a quick search around the house, flicking every light switch she could, showering the place in brightness, she finally went to the kitchen to make herself some calming tea.

This, along with reading and listening to music were her go-to solutions whenever she felt stressed, and she hoped it would be enough to work this time as she held the kettle underneath the tap in her sink with hands that just didn't seem like they wanted to stop shaking in any near foreseeable future.

She settled the kettle on its stand, and turned on her stereo, preloaded with a "Relaxing Nature Sounds" disc, so she could listen to the waves of the ocean as she waited for the water to boil.

It wasn't enough. She nearly dropped the porcelain cup she retrieved from her drawer, due to her shaking hands, and as the kettle finished, she quickly realized that she couldn't even pour the liquid into the cup without risking burns from the boiling water that was sure to spray everywhere.

As it turned out, getting stabbed and nearly killed by a deranged murderer seemed to have more lasting effects on her than her normal anxiety did. Who would have thought?

Her cut started itching again beneath the bandages, and Yuri groaned in frustration, settling down on one of the chairs by her dinner table. She was tempted to slam her fist into the mahogany wood.

Why did she have to be so pathetic? She had truly reached rock bottom with her stupid emotions if she couldn't even make herself a simple cup of tea.

She could feel her eyes getting wet as she kept listening to the sounds from her stereo, doing nothing to calm her, and then made her decision.

She reached into her purse, intent on pulling out the card for the Clinic Batman had provided her with. She really didn't want it to have to come to this, but what other choice did she have when she couldn't even feel safe in her own house?

Yuri gasped in shock as for the second time today her fingers made contact with something she hadn't expected to find in her purse, although this was clearly on a whole other level than Natsuki's cupcake. She quickly retracted her hand from the depths, and with her heart hammering even harder in her chest now, she looked inside to see Zsasz's knife, lying neatly on top of Caleb's poem and some other miscellaneous items she kept in there.

Her eyes widened in fear. She'd forgotten having grabbed it when it had been launched out of the killer's hands, and hiding it in there.

It had a black, wooden shaft, holding onto one of the largest silver blades she'd ever seen, vaguely curved. It was clear that this wasn't like one of her kitchen knives, used for cutting vegetables. The purpose of this knife was obvious, evidenced by the red blood still staining it.

 _My blood?_ She thought, dazed from seeing it. _Or Zsasz's?_

Her bandaged arm was itching more than ever. It was becoming downright unbearable, and she reached over with her other arm to pull at her bandages, despite what Batman had told her. The itching couldn't be a good thing, right? Clear evidence that the bandages were too tightly wrapped, surely. Batman would understand, of course he wou-

Her train of thought stopped when she at last unraveled the arm, and could take in the injured flesh in all its glory. It had stopped bleeding, and had turned a much darker red already, but it was still scary to look at. It looked so out of place on her arm, didn't belong there at all.

She carefully took out the giant knife from her purse, and hurriedly wiped the blood away from it with her expensive dress. It was blood-spattered and dirty anyway, so she didn't really care.

She held the blade up against the light, fascinated by the way the blank surface reflected her eyes. She reached up to run her fingers along it, feeling the cold steel, experiencing just how sharp it was. Any more pressure applied from her fingers, even the tiniest amount, would be enough to draw blood from her, just like it had earlier today.

Her hands had stopped shaking, as if they knew instinctually to be careful, to behave themselves around the weapon. Like with a predator in the wild, she needed to treat it respectfully. One wrong move, and it would all be over.

She spun it around in the air slowly, feeling the weight of it. Again, like a predator, it had a certain grace to it, a beauty that somehow made it more alluring despite the obvious danger present.

She lowered the knife, and held it against the cut on her arm, inspecting it, comparing them, taking in the evidence of the damage it could cause in the wrong hands.

The cut was unsightly. An ugly reminder of a man she hated, of a time where she'd felt completely and utterly helpless, saved more by mere luck than anything she'd done herself. And Batman had told her it would scar, leaving her with the mark for the rest of her life.

How could she possibly ever get over this? Knowing that it was only thanks to the mercy of a madman that she was still breathing? She wouldn't ever be able to show her arm in public again, couldn't ever let people see how she'd been violated by that man, the scar being a symbol of her own weakness. It was, and would remain the mark of Victor Zsasz, and as long as it was there, staining her body, she would be one of his victims, forever and always, with her unable to grow and move past it.

Unless...

 _Unless I make it my own._ She thought, breathing heavily.

She idly circled the knife between her fingers once again, her hands steadier than they'd ever felt before as she considered her options.

If... if she was to make her own mark, across the one Zsasz had made, it would... take away his influence. It would be _her_ mark. Hers to own, it would be her decision, it would be her... _controlling_ it. Instead of being a reminder of a moment where she'd felt vulnerable and weak, it would... it would be a symbol of her own strength.

Yuri moved the knife slowly, as if in a trance, towards the cut on her arm, and settled the blade on top of the wound, resting it at approximately a 45 degree angle.

Her hand was still as if carved in stone. Her head was completely void of thoughts and emotions as she gazed calmly at the blade in her hand. She had tuned out the sounds of her stereo completely, the only sound she was able to hear being her own beating heart.

She took a final deep breath, applied pressure to the blade, and dragged it across her skin in one swift motion.

Euphoria.

Of all the sensations Yuri had expected to feel as she penetrated her own skin, this wave of pleasure washing over her entire body was certainly not one of them.

She threw her head back, completely overwhelmed by the sensations erupting from the newly made cut intersecting the one made not even an hour before. She couldn't speak, move or think straight, could only lean back in her chair as she experienced the satisfying stinging, like pure lightning surging through her veins.

She had never felt more alive than she did at this moment, had never felt anything even remotely comparable to this... _rush,_ overloading her senses. All these years, she'd been so conservative, always feeling as if her emotions were oddly dull and faded when compared to the behaviour of the girls her age, like she didn't belong amongst them, throwing them off with her dignified and controlled way of acting, as opposed to their incessant giggling.

If only they could see her now.

An uncontrollable smirk stretched widely across her face, and her eyes rolled upwards inside her head as Yuri lost herself to the all-consuming pleasure. Her mouth opened automatically as a way to let her breathe even heavier, and she actually felt a strand of drool moving past her lips, dripping down her face.

If she was capable of rational thought, she would probably have been appalled at this very un-ladylike display of hers, but right here, at this very moment, she found herself unable to care about anything, least of all her appearance.

Her insecurities, her worries, her fears, they all seemed so tiny and insignificant compared to this indescrible feeling that had overtaken her. Batman, Zsasz, Mac, Caleb, all the other countless crushes that had given her so much heart grief in the past- it was as if they just ebbed away from her mind, like the water in a bathtub draining away.

She was finally _happy!_

"Haah... haah..." She panted, after what seemed like hours of sitting in this chair indulging herself. The feeling that had consumed her was finally starting to fade away ever so slowly, and she felt herself coming to her senses again.

As her vision started coming back, she looked around her kitchen with dazed eyes, taking in everything as the nature sounds from her stereo started becoming audible again.

Then, her smirk was wiped from her face, and her eyes widened in pure shock when she saw the blood flowing freely from the cuts on her arm resting on the table, dripping down the sides, staining the wood as well as the floor.

She lifted her other arm, which had been dangling limp by her side, still clutching the gigantic knife tightly.

Realization struck her like lightning.

_What the hell am I doing?!_

With a highpitched yelp of panic and disgust, she threw the knife away from herself, and watched it fly across the room, the black shaft colliding with a wall, and landing on the floor.

She raised her hand to cover her mouth, as she watched the blood continuing to trickle down from her arm, at a loss for what to do about it. Her thoughts were jumbled, confused, as if she'd just had the best dream in ages only to awaken in a living nightmare.

_Need to clean the wound. Just like how Batman did._

It helped to focus on a single task. She quickly got up from the chair, and headed with swift steps into her bathroom, placing her mutilated arm underneath the tap, and turning on the water.

The deep red turned into a faded pink in the sink as the water washed it away, and Yuri began looking for iodine in the cabinet above the sink. Drying her arm with a clean towel, she endured the burning sensation of applying the antibiotica, wondering why this process was as painful as it was when literally cutting herself had turned out to be the most amazing feeling she'd ever had.

She didn't want to think about that right now, and after wrapping up her arm in new bandages, her mind went on autopilot as she headed out to do her tasks.

She dried off the blood from the table and floor as best she could, until only a very faded amount of pink residue was vaguely visible, which she would try to remove with hydrogen peroxide in the morning. Putting the blood-spattered towel in a bucket with cold water, she took the opportunity to strip off the hated dress as well, and changed into the comfortable white sweater she should have been wearing in the first place today.

Last, she got into her kitchen again, boiling a new kettle of water whilst making herself a sandwich. She noted how steady her hands were compared to before, expertly handling the breadknife applying peanutbutter to the whole grains bread, and pouring the boiling water into the porcelain cup containing the tea leaves, without shaking even once.

She even carried both the cup and the plate with the sandwich to the dinner table with no shaking on her part whatsoever. It seemed that whatever had happened with her... _reaction..._ before, it had... calmed her down? Even thinking back to the harrowing experience with Zsasz earlier, her heart remained level, and she wasn't afraid.

Which was admittedly kind of worrying.

_What is wrong with me?_

She took a bite of her sandwich, closing her eyes as she savoured the taste. It had been foolish of her to go so long without eating, and as she ate, her rumbling stomach really made it known how hungry she'd been all this time.

After finishing her late night meal and emptying her cup, she finally felt ready and prepared to face the knife laying there on the floor a few meters away, patiently waiting for her.

She looked at it for a few seconds, before taking a deep breath, and picked it up.

Heading back to the table, she carefully placed the knife on the wooden surface, and rolled up her sleeve to see the clean, white bandages, concealing the two marks from view.

When washing away the blood, she had clearly been able to tell the striking difference between her cut, and Zsasz's. But maybe, if she added a bit more practicing, they would eventually become indistinguisable from eachother.

She wasn't stupid. She knew how this looked, how insane this would seem to an outsider looking in, which made it a good thing that she lived alone then.

She wouldn't deny that this was extreme and terrifying as well, already considering adding more marks after that traumatic experience she'd suffered tonight. And the revelation that she apparently was so messed up, so far from being normal that she _liked_ getting cut, filled her up with much disgust and shame of herself.

She wanted nothing more than to forget everything about what had happened tonight.

But the hard truth was that making the cut had calmed her down, far more quickly and effectively than any of her usual go-to solutions ever had, and certainly better than some doctor would ever be able to. How could she go about her life, pretending not to have such a solution for her crippling anxiety?

She picked up the knife again, marveling the reflective surface of the blade, stained just a bit with a few red droplets. It couldn't help that it had been wrongfully used by a man like Zsasz. It was merely a tool. A beautiful tool, expertly crafted with a purpose far more put together than a madman's bidding. She would use it well. She would be smart about this.

It wasn't like she was going to make marks all willy-nilly from now. She wouldn't become an addict. The mark she'd made now would last her for at least a few weeks alone, she was pretty sure, and she promised herself that she was only going to do it when she _truly_ felt like she needed the release. Only on those rare times where her distressed mind would make everything else seem absolutely hopeless, to the point where she couldn't think straight, would she use it.

It probably wasn't good for her. Probably wasn't healthy at all, for both her physical and mental stability.

But it worked. As long as nobody knew about this, things would be fine. Thinking about it rationally, she wasn't hurting anyone else by doing this, and nobody should care about what she did to herself in the privacy of her own home. As long as she didn't flaunt her bare arms at school, (which she didn't think she would have any problems resisting) she could make this work.

She didn't know why the cut had had the effect on her it did. Maybe she had always been like this, a deviant freak. Would explain a few things. Or maybe when Zsasz had cut her, he'd mixed a bit of his own blood into her, passing on a few of his own traits into hers, making her experience his feelings and...

She shook her head in disgust. What a gross, idiotic violation of common sense.

It didn't matter why or how she was like this. She couldn't change her feelings, so there was no reason to worry about it.

She placed the knife on the table again, and yawned widely. She felt like she could sleep for a century straight after tonight.

Before she rose from her chair to pick up the plate and cup from her late night impromptu dinner, her curiosity got the better of her, and she rolled up the sleeve of her other arm, taking in the smooth, pale skin, and ran her fingers along it. It was bare, devoid of any blemishes, like an empty canvas waiting for an artist to turn it into a masterpiece. When she would take off the bandages of her other arm and compare them, she knew her arms would look unsatisfactionally assymmetrical.

She smiled sleepily to herself, and rolled down the sleeve again.

She would fix that.


	15. Interlude VI: On Edge Pt 2

**NOW**

The knife dug deep into the flesh of her arm, and Yuri released a hiss through clenched teeth at the sensation. The cut had to be deep in order to make the desired impact, but not too deep. Too deep, and she would feel the tip of the knife scrape against the bone underneath the flesh, which she knew would be a deeply unpleasant experience, just aesthetically speaking. The sound of it alone was nauseating.

She looked through the small windows of the school front doors, seeing the moon glow brightly among the stars in the black sky, and leaned back against one of the metal lockers in the hallway, sighing in disappointment. The night was still young, and it would be a while before it was time.

Before _he_ arrived.

If someone had told her a year before that she would leave the room of the Literature Club, containing her own Club President _and_ one of her childhood heroines in order to go down to the entrance hallway and cut herself in the middle of the night, she'd... well, she wasn't sure how she would react. She'd been very shy back then, and the scenario in question made her wonder who, at that point in her life, would have even approached to tell her anything, outlandish or otherwise.

Wait, what was she thinking about again?

 _Wonder Woman!_ She reminded herself, and couldn't help releasing a highpitched giggle at her own forgetfulness. She was becoming so silly these days!

She'd had to leave the classroom early. The headache that had been building inside her for the past two weeks had seemed to reach new heights the longer she stayed in that room, making the pain in her head increase a thousand-fold. And this wasn't the good kind of pain, like the delicious feeling that came from cutting her arms open, but an actual, "painful" pain.

She attributed the unpleasant headaches to Monika's determined piano practice which she hadn't let up with since Yuri had first entered the room. There was definitely some audible skill at play in her music, and she was improving at every repeat but... she still had a long way to go, in her opinion. And even if it hadn't been giving her a migraine, it was pretty boring to witness. The superheroine who for some reason was keeping her company in the room hadn't really been that exciting either, with the way she just stood silent in the corner, unblinkingly staring at Yuri with those intense blue eyes, a perpetual scowl on her face so unlike the interviews Yuri had seen of the kind, brave and patient heroine.

Well, it didn't really matter that Wonder Woman had been so different from what Yuri had thought she was like. They said not to meet your heroes, right? And it wasn't like Yuri really cared anymore about her former childhood role model, or abandoning Monika with her alone, or mentally insulting her poor piano playing.

In fact, Yuri had found that for a while now, she'd been unable to care about anything that wasn't directly related to that so, so very special boy who had entered her life just the previous Monday.

Damian Wayne.

Even thinking his name made her heart flutter, pounding so hard against her chest that she began feeling lightheaded like she so often did these days, and started shaking all over. She felt a shortness of breath, and had to run the blade through her arm once more to calm herself for long enough to breathe properly again.

The relaxing effect it had on her was getting shorter these days, and it had nowhere near the same power as it once had.

Where every cut she'd made had once felt like lightning striking her, surging through her body, nowadays she would be lucky to feel even a small electrical current running through her veins. That was okay though, as she would repeatedly tell herself. It still worked, somewhat, she just had to do it more frequently. She needed whatever calming effect she could possibly get with Damian around, even if it was getting harder and harder to find the space on her arms for more marks.

She was sitting in almost complete darkness, with the only light source being a faint, ghostly stripe of the moon from the small door-windows, making it hard to make out any of her surroundings, which included the appearance of her arms. She supposed she should count herself lucky; whatever artistic value her scars once had was lost a little before she'd reached a hundred, and even she could admit her arms just looked like messy gore from a cheap horror movie now. At this point, it wasn't about making the scars look nice at all. She was making them purely out of necessity.

She didn't bother wearing bandages anymore. It was no use when she needed access to her arms as often as she did now. It was fine though, she just had to take some extra care to keep them clean now. Had she remembered to wash the knife today? She couldn't really remember. Surely she had. Probably.

It was funny to think about just how much Damian had affected her in such a short amount of time. It was hard to believe that she had made so many more cuts in these last two days than she had made in the entirety of those six months since that fateful encounter with Zsasz.

She wasn't sure what it was about Damian that just filled her with pure, undiluted _desire,_ every time she saw or thought about the dark, spiky-haired boy. She couldn't quite put her finger on what exactly it was about him that made her lose her breath, needing to cut herself in order to get it back. Because while she had inititially been entranced when she'd heard he read the same kind of books as her, and had been impressed by how smart he was based on his first poems, she had to admit she'd thought him a bit too rude and... _short,_ for her liking at first.

But thankfully everything had changed moving forward, and she'd quickly come to her senses in realizing he was truly the most perfect boy she'd ever met. Every aspect of him was absolutely flawless, from his looks, to the sound of his voice, to the musky, intoxicating scent of his sweat that she would breathe in whenever she got close enough to him, to his _taste..._

Yuri giggled once more, amused by her own sillyness. She hadn't _tasted_ him, of course she hadn't. Not yet, anyway. It did sound like an appealing prospect, now that she thought about it though. Maybe he would let her try if she asked nicely?

She wanted nothing more than to be with him forever and always, to make herself worthy of being looked at by his intense, unimpressed stare. Every moment she was apart from him felt like agony, hurting her far more than her knife ever could. It was pure torture, the way she longed for the feel of his touch on her skin!

She'd never felt this way about those other crushes in her past. She'd been obsessed those times too, but never to this level. Hell, now that she thought about it, she found that she couldn't even recall the name of the guy who'd been her last heartache, the guy she'd been devastated over back then, reduced to a vague memory of embarrassment and regret. It was like there wasn't room enough in her head to remember unimportant details like him when someone as superior as _Damian_ was on her mind.

There was only one explanation to this: It had to be _true_ love this time, not just a silly crush like with those other boys. She needn't have bothered trying to get attached to them, when it was so clearly her _destiny_ to be soulmates with Damian. Her feelings were so strong, so overwhelming, it could be nothing except fate itself for them to be together. She had never been as sure about anything as she was about this, it was as cut and dried as a freshly sharpened knife: She belonged with Damian, and Damian belonged with her. And if anyone would come between them and their love, she would personally make sure they would come to regret it.

And then her faint smile darkened as Natsuki's smug face flashed before her eyes, and red hot anger flared inside of her.

 _"Oh, you didn't know?"_ Monika's voice from an hour before echoed in her mind. _"Him and Natsuki already left for home, long before the Festival even started. Apparently they've become a bit of an item, isn't that fun?"_

Yuri's relationship with Natsuki had always been what could generously be described as "strained" at best. Despite having known her for the longest time, she'd always been in doubt of whether the smaller girl's teasing came from a good place, or if it had always been with malicious intent when Natsuki made fun of her appearance, or her interests, or anything at all, really.

Well, she wasn't in doubt anymore. There was no way Natsuki didn't know exactly what she was doing, taking away _her_ Damian the way she had. Hadn't Yuri made her feelings about the boy abundantly clear by now? Hadn't she warned her to _back off_ in a way everyone would be able to understand?

Natsuki didn't love the boy the way Yuri did, how could she? It wasn't _her_ predestined fate to be with him. Hell, it was pretty clear that she didn'teven like Damian, with the way she constantly insulted and mocked him just like she did to Yuri!

There was only one possible reason for Natsuki to be doing this. Only one explanation that made sense: she was doing it to hurt her. She was an evil, spiteful witch who reveled in the suffering she inflicted on everyone around her, with her favourite victim being Yuri. That was why she'd spent all these years _cutting_ her down and belittling her, with this just being her latest sadistic scheme to make Yuri's life hell. She probably thought that by doing this she would make Yuri back down in fear like the scared bunny she usually was, too afraid of confrontations to fight back.

Yuri sneered. If that's what she thought was going to happen this time, she would be sorely mistaken.

Yuri wasn't the same kind of girl anymore, the kind who would just roll onto her back and take whatever abuse that would come her way, and she was _done_ letting that little, pink-haired _slut_ get away with mistreating her like this again. She'd crossed the line this time around, and if Natsuki wanted to keep going down this path, she wouldn't like what awaited her at the end of it.

She gripped the knife tighter in her hand, smiling in grim satisfaction.

_She won't know what hit her before it's too late._

A bit extreme, she'd admit it, but what other choice did she have? If Natsuki was able to go _this low_ in order to hurt her, then she had to respond in kind, and couldn't afford to hold back.

Batman would not approve of her decision, she knew that, and it did actually make her feel a bit apologetic to disappoint a man she respected so much. But he just didn't understand that this was the only _working_ solution for dealing with truly evil people like The Joker, Victor Zsasz and Natsuki. If you didn't deal with them in a way that would _permanently_ put them out of commision, they would just keep coming back to hurt you, and the people you loved. And if Batman wanted to keep going through that, keep following a system that obviously wasn't working, then fine. That was his decision, and she respected that. But he would have to respect too that she wasn't going to risk her future happiness just to gain a moral high ground. There was way too much at stake here for her to do that.

She didn't blame Damian for any of this, of course she didn't. Despite how intelligent and smart she knew he was, he was still a boy. He was the real victim in this, confused about his true feelings, probably didn't even realize that he was meant to be with Yuri, and if the rumors she had heard about Natsuki were true, then it came as no surprise that she would have quite the experience in seducing boys, being the little _whore_ that she was.

Damian just needed Yuri's guidance to show him the _right_ way, to help him understand that _she_ was the only girl for him to be with. And once she'd dealt with Natsuki, surely it would break the spell she had him under, and he would realize how naive he'd been in thinking Natsuki could ever compete with her.

Yuri knew what it was boys looked for in a woman after all, and she was fortunate enough to have been blessed with all the right curves in all the right places, whereas Natsuki was flat as a board, just a tiny bit too feminine to be mistaken for a boy. For the first time in her life, Yuri wasn't ashamed of her body and how attention-grabbing it was, as it would be that aspect exactly that would grant her the ultimate price.

A thought suddenly struck her. All this time she had been thinking about how all would be well if she just confessed her love to Damian, not giving a second thought if he shared the same feelings about her. As the other member of their future relationship, his opinion about this subject was at least as important as hers after all, and she had never even considered the possibility that he might not like her the same way.

Yuri gazed ahead of herself into the darkness of the hallway, a puzzled look on her face as she thought the scenario over.

Then, she laughed.

Oh, she was really getting so very, very silly now. She hadn't considered it, because it wasn't even worth considering! Of course he shared her feelings. He had to! They were meant for each other, as she'd already established! The idea of him not wanting to spend the rest of his life with her? Laughable!

And even if she was to entertain the ludicrous suggestion of him rejecting her love, it would still be no problem. Because if he did that, which he wouldn't, but _if_ he did, well, then her purpose in life would be gone, and there would be nothing left for her in this world! And without a purpose, there would be no reason for her to keep living! All she'd have to do then would be killing herself, and bam, problem solved! Either she'd live happily ever after tomorrow, or she'd die trying. Her future was set either way, and there was no reason to worry about anything!

Yuri cast a silent blessing to the knife in her hand, the very same she'd picked up in the alleyway all those months ago, brought with purpose by her today, on this special occasion. How amazing was it that it had been the one to put a stop to her anxiety problems back then, and in a few hours would put a swift end to the lingering issue of Natsuki, too? And, if worst came to worst, and Damian rejected her, it would be the solution to her continued existence afterwards, she decided. It would be fitting, having the blade that cut her first be the one to put an end to her with one last cut.

Not that the scenario would happen, of course. It was purely hypothetical, a fun thing to think about, that was all.

Yuri had always felt like an outcast, feeling as if everyone knew their role in life, except for her. It was so assuring to have finally found what her true purpose in life was: being by Damian's side.

She would be a _great_ girlfriend for Damian. She wouldn't be needy, or bossy, or bitchy at all. She wouldn't talk back to him, or be annoying, and they'd never have any fights. She would let him do whatever he wanted to do to her, she'd be his perfect little housewife who stayed at home and cooked him meals, if that's what he wanted her to be, and all she'd need in return would be his love. And then, when they grew up a bit more, she would happily carry his babies with the deepest pride, raising and loving their children with all her heart.

In fact, why wait? There was no reason they couldn't get started right now! The sooner the better, right? Teen pregnancies were all the rage nowadays!

Some of her long, purple hair had fallen in front of her face, and she brushed it aside with her hand, feeling the contact of something wet on her forehead when her fingers made brief contact with it in the movement. Puzzled for a quick second, she chuckled quietly as she realized her hand had to be covered in her blood from the multitude of open wounds bleeding down her arm.

And now she had mixed it into her hair!

She laughed, and raised both her hands, driving her fingers through her hair in long, slow movements, as if she was washing it in the shower, getting it positively soaked in the thick liquid of her body, felt as it slowly began dripping down her head. Might as well go all the way, now that she had already stained a small portion in it, right? And red went well together with purple.

Maybe Damian would find it pretty.

She was finding it hard to breathe again, and lowered the knife to her arm again in order to release some of the pressure, hoping vaguely she'd memorized where all her veins were located on her arm, and avoided cutting them up _too_ much in the darkness. She'd already passed out once today in the bathroom, and for far longer than she would have liked, causing her to miss the festival. If she cut open too much of a vein, it was possible she would pass out for even longer and miss Damian's arrival, never getting the chance to proclaim her love for him!

Oh, and she could die, too. That wouldn't be good either.

She wondered how Damian would react to seeing her arms. Keeping with her promise to be a good girlfriend to him, she would of course be completely open, honest and transparent with him, not that she thought it possible to even keep something of this magnitude a secret from him. Would he be horrified? Disgusted? Afraid of her?

Or maybe he was the same as her. Maybe he had marks of his own.

Maybe they could cut each other.

In a fit of inspiration, she bent her head down, opening her mouth to run her tongue along her arm, feeling the jagged, uneven surface, tasting metal as she imagined herself doing this to Damian after a loving cutting session between them.

 _I'd like that..._ she thought, and continued waiting patiently for his arrival, staring dreamily out at the pale moon, wondering if Damian's blood would taste the same as hers.

She smiled.

Tomorrow would be a good day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I got the idea to write a crossover between Doki Doki and DC, this was the very first chapter that came to mind. The chance to get Zsasz and Yuri together was too good an opportunity to pass up.  
> Then, as I started weaving the other plot threads together, I soon realized that this Interlude, the part of the story I was most excited to write, only fit in as... a flashback, separate from the main plot.   
> And now that it’s finally written, I just had to go and make it just SLIGHTLY longer than the Prologue. If I didn’t like splitting up main Chapters, then I absolutely LOATHE splitting up Interludes, especially this one, but oh well. I just hope I succeeded in making it as non-filler as possible.  
> Inadequate Author Complaining Time over.  
> Thank you Kariminal, for your continued support of this story. I’m so happy to hear you still enjoy it.   
> I can definitely see your POV regarding Sayori, Jon and Monika. It’s entirely possible that I failed to properly portray their feelings towards each other.


	16. Confronting The Enemy

The sun was shining brightly from its position in the clear, blue sky, devoid of so much as a single cloud. Casting its warm, golden rays at an angle, the star succeeded in lighting up about half of the rustic Gotham High building, while the other half remained submerged in dark shadow.

Eventually, when the sun would rise a little further as the day progressed, and if the weather kept up its current flow, every single detail of the building would become visible, completely showered in the light for all to see.

Not that anyone would be around to admire the craftsmanship of the structure, it being a Saturday. Most students would stay as far away as they could for the weekend, and choosing instead to go out shopping, hang out with friends in the warm weather, or just staying in their bed and sleep in until far into the afternoon.

Damian Wayne wasn't one of those students however, as evidenced by his brisk steps into the schoolyard, staring with determination at the building, knowing who and what he'd have to confront in there today.

A dragged out, audible moan could be heard from his side, and he turned his head vaguely towards the source, seeing the tired Natsuki walking slightly behind him, her pink hair blowing lightly in the faint wind, mouth stretched open into a wide yawn.

Since Monika hadn't really specified a proper timeframe for their meetup beyond "tomorrow," they'd all decided to just arrive at seven am, agreeing that arriving this early would be for the best, both in regards to the others' nerves, and to gain a possible psychological advantage if they managed to get there before the Student Metahuman.

He was a bit concerned that due to the early hours they'd departed, the guest resident of Wayne Manor would be too tired to function properly at the meeting, and be off her game. But, when she closed her mouth once more, he saw a determined, steadfast look mirroring his own in her fiery pink eyes.

She wasn't wearing her usual school uniform, having decided to take a page out of Damian's clothing line instead and was now dressed in a plain, black t-shirt with some matching jeans, acquired from a box of spare clothes Alfred had dug up the day prior.

She looked good in it. Of course, black went well with everything, but he thought it matched especially well with her unique, vibrant haircolour.

Not that he cared, of course. She could dress however she wanted, it made no difference to him. Completely irrelevant to everything, actually.

A sudden, metallic creak could be heard beneath Damian's foot, and he stopped, looking down to see a bent, empty can of Soder Cola mashed beneath his shoe. A little bit of brown, fizzy liqud trickled out of its nozzle, and he kicked it away, disgusted.

 _"-TT-"_ He scoffed, looking up again to see that similar abandoned items lay strewn about the rest of the yard.

 _ **"-TT-"**_ He scoffed again, more pronounced this time. It seemed as if the teachers had been just as much in a hurry to get home for the weekend as the students, judging from the lack of clean-up.

"Some party we missed last night." Natsuki commented, inspecting their surroundings as well. "Maybe we should have stayed after all."

"I sincerely doubt anything of major importance took place." Damian brushed her off, continuing his trek towards the front doors. "And regardless, the more time we would have spent in _her_ company, the more likely you and Kent would have given something away. Going home early was for the best."

 _Not to mention that parties are just a waste of time, anyway._ He thought.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say, General Know-It-All." Natsuki said absently, craning her head to look up at the towering building. There was a clear hint of unease creeping through the voice she tried to make dismissive and uncaring. "Speaking of, any word from Jon and Sayori yet?"

Damian reached into his pocket to pull out his phone, checking their texting app. Since they'd departed from the Manor, a new message from the half-alien had popped up.

"He says they'll be slightly delayed." Damian said, pocketing the phone again. "Sayori had a panic attack when he got to the Clinic, and he's trying to calm her down."

"Oh God." Natsuki sighed. "I hope she'll be okay. I swear, I'm going to actually kill Monika for this."

"Let's start off by talking before moving on to the more lethal options." Damian said, not used to be the one arguing _against_ the use of extreme violence in any given situation. "Do you have any means of communication with Yuri?"

"I'm pretty damn sure she's had me blocked ever since she caught us in that cabinet." Natsuki said. "And somehow I doubt she'll be willing to chat, given the things she told me yesterday."

"Hm." Damian acknowledged, and stopped moving. He'd walked right up the small steps, and now found himself right in front of the doors leading inside the building.

Tentatively, he reached out to place his hand on the doorhandle, pulling it downwards.

It wasn't locked. He could push it open right now, and head inside, as easy as anything.

_This means Monika is already in there, somewhere._

He hesitated.

Should they wait for Jon to arrive before heading in? On the one hand, they would be facing down a Metahuman, one of the most irregular and unpredictable enemies in the world, and having the Son of Superman by their side could only improve such a situation. Jon Kent's power and abilities went a long way in Damian's plans when they had to fight enhanced humans.

But at the same time, like he'd tried to make Jon and Natsuki understand yesterday, he'd studied Monika's powerset, gathering the evidence of what she could do, and it really wasn't that impressive. Without the element of uncertainty and surprise, she was just an average, teenage girl with a mental disorder. Someone he should be able to take down even easier than Natsuki's excuse for a father, certainly without having to rely on a Kryptonian powerset. Hell, they should be avoiding unnecessarily revealing their identities to any more of these girls, and he saw no reason why they would need the aid of Robin and Superboy when Damian Wayne and Jon Kent would suffice. Or just Damian Wayne, really.

And even in the extremely unlikely, downright laughable event of him having made a mistake and misjudged her powers, he was wearing one of his spare utility belts under his shirt, filled to the brim with state of the art tech, weapons and tools, just in case Monika should prove herself more difficult than anticipated. But that would remain a last resort. Better be overprepared than not prepared at all, and this should be over quickly anyways.

"What do we do?" Natsuki asked from his side.

"Let's go." He said, pushing all remaining doubt out of his mind, and opened the door.

They both headed inside the wide hallway, seeing the metal cabinets on either side, before the front doors closed again, plunging everything into darkness. Only a faint line of sunshine pierced through the small windows at the top of the doors, making small slivers of light on the floor.

"Know where the light switch is?" Damian asked.

"Actually, no." Natsuki said, from right behind him. "Never arrived early enough for the lights not to be on."

"Hrn." He grunted, dissatisfied, and rummaged under his shirt to reach into one of the compartments of his belt. He really didn't like not being able to see his enemy. From his own experience, that was usally how you got jumped.

He pulled out two small, cylindrical devices, pressing a small button on one of them, causing a strong beam of light to erupt from the end. In order to avoid aiming at Natsuki's eyes, he pointed it upwards, illuminating just enough of the room for him to see the girl when he turned around.

"Here." He said, handing her the other one. "Use this to find the light switch. Don't stray too far, and remember to immediately alert me if you feel any sudden head pains or mood swings."

"Got it." She said, accepting the device, and turning it on, aiming the beam on the floor. "Wow, this thing is neat! Where did you buy-"

She cut herself off, an expression of shock on her face as she looked down towards the lit up floor. Damian followed her gaze, and raised his eyebrows in mild surprise.

A small puddle of scarlet liquid, long since dried up, were staining the floor. Damian approached them and bent his knees to inspect closer, while Natsuki kept the stains visible with the flashlight.

"Is- is that...?"

"Blood." Damian confirmed, rising again. He was plenty familiar with this substance, and could easily identify it when he saw it.

"What the hell happened here?" Natsuki said, a slight shaking in her voice. "Did... did Monika do this to someone?

"It could be entirely unrelated." Damian shrugged. "People bleed all the time. Could be someone from yesterday getting a nosebleed, with nobody bothering to sweep it up. You saw how 'effective' their cleanup crew was from the outside yard."

"You sure?" Natsuki asked.

"No." He admitted. "It is possible it could be something else, too. We won't know until we find that switch and get a light on our surroundings."

"This doesn't freak you out?" Natsuki exclaimed in disbelief.

"We each have approximately one point two gallons of the stuff inside us." Damian said, then saw an opportunity to mock the smaller girl. "Well, maybe just _one_ gallon in your case. Point is, blood is natural. Nothing to 'freak out' about. And besides, it's completely dry. Whoever bled here, did so at least a few hours ago."

"Okay, you're _really_ not helping your own case of not being a vampire here." Natsuki retorted.

"Just find the damn switch." Damian said impatiently, turning around to scan the walls near the doors with his light, trying to locate the switch. He heard Natsuki move a bit further into the darkness.

"There's more of it!" She exclaimed.

"That's nice." Damian responded, barely listening. He was getting a bit frustrated over his continuous failed attempts to locate the switch. "Found anything?"

"I'm looking, jeez!" Came her annoyed response.

A few seconds later, she spoke up again.

"Uhh, Damian?"

"Unless it's about the light switch I don't ca-"

"This blood trail is... still glistening." She spoke over him. "I think it's... fresh."

Damian snapped his head towards her, aiming his flashlight with him to illuminate Natsuki's fearful face as she looked down at the blood on the floor.

His eyes widened in surprise and alarm, not at the implications of fresh blood on the floor, but instead at the towering figure of Yuri standing silently right behind Natsuki.

He recognized her from her signature mop of long purple hair, looking more disheveled than it ever had before. The normally smooth locks seemed like they hadn't felt the touch of a comb for several days, strands of it sticking out to the sides in strange ways. A lot of the hair went down the front of her face, hiding most of it from view as she stood over the oblivious pinkhaired girl.

Then, she started raising her left arm, which from this distance looked like it was clad in some kind of long, red glove going all the way up up to her elbow.

But Damian took more note of the large, curved knife held in that gloved hand, its blade glinting in the light from his device, pointed downwards, right towards where Natsuki was standing.

"Natsuki!" Damian yelled, springing into action as he started running towards them. "Behind you!"

Natsuki, surprised by his sudden outburst, slowly turned around, finally seeing the girl behind her. Then, instead of running away, she did the worst thing she could ever do in this situation.

She froze up.

"Yuri?" Damian heard her small voice ask over his own hammering footsteps as he closed in on them, far too slowly for his liking.

The taller girl's only response was to plunge the knife downwards.

"NO!" Damian shouted, but his voice was drowned out by Natsuki's ear-deafening scream as Yuri's knife sank into a spot just below her left shoulderblade, easily tearing through her borrowed shirt to penetrate the soft flesh beneath. Her scream, sounding equal parts like it was from shock and fear as it was from pain, was cut off and turned into a choked gasp when Yuri unceremonously pulled back the knife, retracting it from the girl, before raising it again as she prepared to stab her once more.

Damian was enraged, and saw red. He'd finally closed the distance between the two girls, and wasted no further time as he immediately leapt through the air, aiming a kick directly in the middle of the attacker's chest. Overwhelmed by his attack, Yuri was flung backwards, crashing hard against the wall behind her as Damian landed gracefully on the floor again, right next to Natsuki.

At the same moment Yuri impacted with the wall, the hallway was showered in bright, electronic lights, illuminating the scene. In kicking her away, Damian had inadvertantly found the light switch at the same time, allowing him to now get a proper look at their assailant.

The first thing he noticed about her, was that she wasn't wearing gloves like he'd initially thought. The arms he'd seen at the poorly lit distance, holding the knife, had just been that- her bare arms, the sleeves of her uniform blazer rolled up to reveal the pale, white skin- or what was left of it.

Both of her arms were completely littered in cuts. Small, large, long, short, shallow, deep, every variety one could think of, intersecting one another and completely covering every visible space available. There had to be far over hundreds of them, making the arms more resemble mincemeat from a slaughterhouse than injuries that should ever be present on a human being.

The blood was pouring out of the cuts, trickling down to stain her hands and the knife she still held onto with a firm iron grip, dripping down to form a small red pool on the floor beneath her feet.

And as he took in more of her, he realized that the blood was far from exclusive to the cuts alone.

She was completely smeared in the stuff. Her shoes, her legs, her skirt, the rest of her uniform, (which Damian had added to by placing an imprint of his boot across her chest, red from the blood he'd stepped in on his way over) even her hair had patches of drying, red spots where her locks clumbed together from the blood entangled inside. It was hard to spot a single part of her that hadn't been covered in at least some amount of her own blood.

"Are you okay?" Damian whispered to Natsuki, without taking his eyes off Yuri who remained leaned up against the wall she'd been pushed against, shaking like a leaf, head lowered.

"I- I..." Natsuki stammered, before releasing a whimper and collapsing to the floor. "It r- really hurts..."

"I know." Damian said, easily relating to her pain. The first time a blade pierced your skin was always the worst. He still had the faded scar from when he'd been two and had to swordfight his mother. "Place your hand on the wound and apply as much pressure as you can. I'll be with you in a bit."

Yuri's shoulders were rising and lowering rhythmically as she breathed heavily, still shaking. Then, she slowly raised her head.

Like every other part of her, the blood had made its mark across her facial features, in the form of a smeared, crimson handprint across her cheek, as well as a narrow trail flowing from both corners of her mouth. The substance seemed more pronounced here, given how deathly pale the rest of her face was, apart from the heavily darkened bags beneath her eyes that were little more than barely visible purple pinpricks at this point.

They were shifting around wildly from side to side, as if she hadn't fully comprehended what had just transpired, and how she'd ended up over there, up against the wall, before focusing on Damian.

She smiled, showcasing that even her teeth hadn't been spared the bloodstaining.

"Damian? Is that you?" She asked, in a breathless voice.

Damian met her gaze in kind, gritting his teeth in anger, and disgust. While he usually wasn't bothered by seeing blood, even he had his limits, and those marks of obvious self-mutilation were more than enough to cross them. He felt revolted just looking at her.

He'd been annoyed with this girl throughout the whole week, every single thing she did managing to push his buttons in all the wrong ways. Too sensitive, too shy, too slow. The more time he'd spent with her, the more he'd realized that he just vehemently disliked every aspect of her personality, even before her obsessive streak had manifested. He never should have let this go on for more than one afternoon, should have just told her that he wasn't interested in her at all from day one. By allowing these feelings of hers to fester on, he'd allowed this lunatic to nearly kill Natsuki.

His blood was boiling with barely suppressed rage. He wanted to charge the heavily breathing Yuri and unleash his full potential upon her for what she'd just done. And not the watered down moves of restraint his father had taught him, but the original martial arts nailed into him by the elders of Nanda Parbat, befitting his original purpose as the Heir to the Head of the Demon, far too brutal and lethal for any Robin to do.

By the time he was done with her, those cuts on her arms would resemble a light skin scrape in comparison.

 _No._ An insisting voice inside his head said, the voice that had manifested some time after he'd rejected the cause of Talia Al Ghul, and embraced his father's instead, quenching his bloodlust. _That's not who you are anymore._

He closed his eyes for half a second before opening them, taking in the blood-covered Yuri once again, in another light.

She was shaking like a leaf, her chest moving up and down sporadically taking in light, fast breaths, staring at him with such an unnatural sense of longing, desire and desperation as she held onto the knife like it was the only thing keeping her upright, with hands connected to those horribly scarred arms.

She looked so... pitiful, and he remembered what he himself had been trying to inform Jon and Natsuki of yesterday.

_This is not Yuri's fault. She's a victim, and this is all Monika's doing._

His anger subsided, just a bit.

"Yuri, put the knife down." He ordered. "You've seriously injured Natsuki, and I don't want anyone else getting hurt."

"Y- you're defending her?" Yuri whispered, frowning.

"Put. The knife. _Down._ " Damian repeated, keeping his voice as level and patient as he could. "You've lost a lot of blood, and you're not thinking clearly."

Yuri bent her head down to look at her still dripping arms, as if noticing them for the first time. Then she looked back up to lock eyes with him, her mouth curving into a deranged smile.

"Y- you're right, I have lost a lot of it. I- I'll probably need a transfusion, to get some more. What's your b- bloodtype? Actually, that doesn't matter. I just want your blood _inside_ of me!"

"Yuri, listen to me." Damian said, not humoring her display of lunacy. "This isn't you. Your emotions have been tampered with by Monika. She's the one making you do this, but you can overcome it. I know you're an intelligent woman, and you have to realize this isn't the right way to go about things. Just drop the knife, and we can talk about this."

"No!" She exclaimed, looking upset. "I'm sorry D- Damian, I'd do anything for you, but I can't put this knife down. Not y- yet. I have... I have to kill the evil slut who came between our love! Came between _us!"_

Yuri released a scream, and pushed herself off the wall, making a beeline straight for the girl behind Damian, knife raised in a desperate attempt to stab her again. But this time, Damian was ready for her.

Reaching out, he grabbed hold of her wrist mid-run, cringing a bit as he felt the wet blood on his palm, and, using her own forward momentum against her, spun her around to make her run directly against one of the metal cabinets instead. The clanging sound of her impact echoed throughout the hallway.

Yuri turned around, dazed and confused, clearly not understanding what had just happened as she looked towards Damian again, the knife still held firmly in her hand.

"There is no 'us,' Yuri." Damian said. "There never was. Now please, drop the knife. I don't want to have to hurt you."

That was a lie. He wanted almost nothing more than to get vengeance for what she'd done to Natsuki, this simple feint of making her run into the cabinet not being nearly enough punishment in his opinion, but he couldn't. He needed to be rational about this. The girl in front of him was a prime example of what happened when someone let their emotions control their actions, and he would not allow that to happen to him today.

He could diffuse this conflict. Yuri had no formal training, and was in a highly weakened state, both mentally and physically. He should easily be able to control this situation, and keep Natsuki from further harm. There was nothing Yuri could do to either of them.

"Y- you don't l- love me?" Yuri asked in a shaky voice, her tiny purple eyes staring at him in shock and disbelief at hearing his words. A single tear trickled down her cheek, smearing the bloody handprint further.

"Yuri, you just stabbed my friend." Damian said, surprising himself with how easy it had been for him, using that word to describe Natsuki. He didn't let it show, and kept his eyes locked on Yuri's. "Of course I don't love you."

A stunned silence fell upon the hallway, where the only sounds that could be heard were the idle drops of blood that kept trickling down onto the floor from Yuri's arms. Damian wondered a bit about whether or not Natsuki was coping behind him, being as quiet as she was.

After a minute of this quiet however, Yuri broke it.

"Heh."

She smiled again, but there was no humor present in her eyes. In fact, aside from the smile growing ever wider across her face, she looked more distraught than she'd ever seemed before.

Damian braced himself. He recognized that look from Asylum patients he'd faced in the past. They occurred when the person in question was pushed up against a corner, had no where else to go, felt like they had nothing left to lose, and geared themselves up for a final, desperate attack. This was when they were at their most unpredictable, and dangerous.

"Yuri-" He started, but his voice was drowned out by the girl suddenly beginning to laugh loudly and freely, her voice filling up the hallway. The laughter didn't carry the same kind of psychopathic evil as that of The Joker's, but it still sounded no less deranged and disturbing. Especially when she started raising her knife again, gripping its shaft with both hands, the blade pointing downwards as she kept laughing maniacally.

Damian shifted into a defensive position, walking a few steps backwards to fully shield Natsuki with his body. It wasn't like he was _that_ worried, since he'd defeated rows of blade-wielding assassins before, each of them far more skilled than what Yuri could ever hope to become, but he wasn't about to take any chances.  
The moment Yuri charged, he would make another feint to disarm her, then tackle her down to the floor where she couldn't hurt anyone else. Then, after he'd made sure Natsuki was going to make it, it was possible that he would help her. Maybe.

Except... Yuri didn't charge. She didn't run, didn't walk, didn't take any step whatsoever. As she kept laughing as hard as she could, tears streaming down her eyes, she just kept raising the knife.

Then, Damian's eyes widened as he finally realized her true intentions when she turned the knife in her hands, pointing the blade right towards her own chest.

She plunged, still laughing, and Damian could only watch as time seemed to slow down in front of him, the knife closing in on her own body.

Damian told himself to move, to stop her, to do _something._ But he couldn't. He hadn't been expecting this from her. It was like his brain was unable to fathom someone ever willingly doing what Yuri was currently doing. As a fighter, he was used to his opponents trying to stab _him,_ not _themselves,_ and although he had over a hundred different unique ways to disarm someone that he was able to casually execute in his sleep, this simple twist seemed to render him completely useless and immobile.

And at the same time, there was a nagging voice in his head, as he watched the knife rapidly approach her chest, a voice that had been present for the longest time he could remember, a voice that had stubbornly remained even as he'd cast aside the ways of his mother.

_Do you even WANT to save her?_

"Yuri, don't-" He began, not knowing what else to even say, perfectly aware it would be fruitless either way. The knife had traveled too far already, and there was nothing he could do to stop this. It wasn't even a matter of seconds anymore before the knife would make its fatal impact.

Then, a strong burst of wind billowed around him, making him flinch inadverdantly and close his eyes. Yuri's laughter all around him died down a little, not by the expected gasp of her sheathing the blade in her body, followed by a death rattle, but instead just fading away awkwardly, as if she herself was confused about why she wasn't dying.

When Damian opened his eyes once more, he got his explanation for this odd turn of events.

Jonathan Kent was standing tall, right in front of him, having thrown all caution to the wind by wearing his Superboy jacket (minus the cape) on full display for all to see. His eyes beneath the glasses were staring resolutely at Yuri in grim determination, ignoring Yuri's blood pouring down his hand as he held a firm grip on her wrist, stopping the knife a mere millimetre from the point on her chest where Damian knew her heart to be right underneath.

"Nobody dies today." He spoke out, his voice filled with such confidence, resolution and sheer authority, that Damian thought even the strongest cynic would believe in him since- he did.

At that moment, the boy's age didn't matter, nor did his teenage insecurities, immaturity or inexperience. At that very moment, Damian could see nothing except the true example of a hero, a worthy successor to Superman himself.

"J- Jon?" He heard Natsuki's voice of quiet awe from behind him.

"Ha, ha... l- l- let g- go of m- me..." Yuri managed to blurt out through her mixed fits of sobs and giggles, still smiling way too widely while trying her hardest to continue pushing the knife through her body. Against Jon's grip on her wrist however, she'd probably have better luck trying to lift a car above her head.

"P- please, heh... I- I n- _need_ to do this, ha ha..."

"No, Yuri." Jon said, his expression softening as he looked at her in pity, and effortlessly pulled her hands away from her body, removed the blade from the grip of her fingers with his other hand, and dropped it to the floor with a loud clanging. "You're not thinking clearly, and I'm not going to let you do something like this when you're not yourself."

"Nooo... ha, ha..." Yuri whimpered as her eyes followed the spot where the knife had landed, giggling as she tried pulling herself free from Jon's grip, and towards her weapon.

Jon glanced down at the arm he was holding onto, taking in all the cuts.

"I'm- I'm sorry, Yuri. We should have paid more attention to you. If only we'd taken more notice to the signs, we could have stopped it before it ever got this bad. This... is our fault."

Yuri's only response was a few choked giggles as she leaned as far as she could towards the knife still on the floor, even reaching towards it with her free arm, giving no inclination that she was listening to Jon's words.

"Yuri, I..." Natsuki said, rising from the floor with a grunt of effort, clutching at the spot beneath her shoulder, blood traveling down her fingers.

She couldn't say more however, before Yuri snapped towards her so fast it surprised even Damian.

"Shut up!" She screamed, the wide smile not dropping an inch, but the fury burning bright in her purple eyes. "This is _your_ fault, Natsuki! You did this to me! You hear me?!"

She rushed towards her, laughing loudly again, and it was only Jon's continued handhold on her wrist that kept Yuri from physically attacking the pink-haired girl.

"You keep making fun of me! Every time you speak, it's just an endless barrage of insults and abuse, cutting me down each and every time! You're a bully, you always have been! And now you've taken away the only thing that was keeping me happy!"

"Uh, a little help here, Damian?" Jon said, his voice having lost its confidence as he dragged Yuri further away from the baffled-looking Natsuki, standing still and looking overwhelmed before she tried speaking again.

"I- I'm sorry, Yuri. I thought you-"

She was interrupted by Yuri's shriek of hysterical laughter and subsequent lunge forward, reaching out with her free hand as if she wanted nothing more than to slash Natsuki apart with her fingernails. While Jon kept her in check, Damian could tell by his worried look that he was afraid of holding her too tightly and making her injure herself even further than she already had.

Moving swiftly, Damian grabbed her reaching hand, and pulled it backwards, helping Jon while reaching under his jacket to fumble around his belt for something that might help with this situation.

"You're _sorry?!"_ Yuri shrieked with renewed energy as spittle flew from her mouth. "Do you really think that helps the slightest, fucking bit?! You think you can take away all the years you've made me feel like garbage by saying sorry?! I hate you! The only reason I didn't stick the knife in your fucking throat was because I wanted to see you suffer just a fraction as much as I've suffered over the years in your company! _You're the reason I cut myself!"_

"Y- Yuri?"

Damian, and everyone else turned their heads towards the sound of the new female voice coming from the front door of the hallway which had just been opened to reveal Sayori, wearing a plain, gray shirt and a matching pair of pants along with her trademark red bow and a new, maroon scarf adorned with, if Damian wasn't much mistaken, christmas ornaments. She stood still in the doorway, taking in the scene in front of her with a mixture of confusion and fear in her bright, blue eyes.

"Uh, Sayori, maybe it would be best if you waited a bit outside." Jon said, a slight panic in his voice as he and Damian kept hold of the bleeding Yuri to keep her from killing Natsuki, who was applying pressure to a stab wound in a hallway covered in blood. "Things... things aren't very pleasant at the moment..."

Ignoring him, Sayori slowly walked towards them, her eyes growing even wider as she fully saw the state of Yuri, particularly her arms.

She released a quiet gasp, and looked up at Yuri's face, who was still smiling widely.

"Yuri..." She said in a miniscule voice, tears swelling in her eyes. "...what have you done?"

"Ha, ha..." Yuri laughed softly, smiling wider as she met Sayori's eyes. "Y- you had the right idea, Sayori. I u- understand why you did it now."

"What?" Sayori asked, and Yuri began shaking violently.

"L- life is nothing but pain!" Yuri exclaimed, in a voice growing increasingly louder. "A- and not the good pain, either! I- it's an endless, downwards spiral of awful events, a- and the only way to escape it, is to stop living it! I see why you tried to kill yourself now, and I'm sorry it didn't work out!"

"Yuri, stop-" Jon cut in, but was spoken over by Sayori.

"H- how can you say that?" She asked and the tears flowed freely from her eyes.

"I wanna die!" Yuri screamed, laughing loudly as she did so. "I don't want to live like this anymore, in constant agony! Just let me-"

She gasped midsentence, feeling the impact of the needle Damian had fished out of his belt being jammed into a spot below her neck. Her eyes shifted around in shock, meeting his as he calmly pushed the bottom of the syringe, injecting her with the liquid inside.

"...die..." She breathed out, before her eyelids fluttered, closed, and her body became limp.

She began toppling over, and only Jon's fast reflexes prevented her from crashing to the floor as he caught and gently lowered her.

"What the-" He started, but Damian cut him off, already reaching inside his belt to pull out a few rolls of bandages and iodine bottles, throwing a few to Jon.

"Here, take care of Natsuki's injury." He said, bending down to inspect how best to handle the unconscious girl. "I'll wrap up Yuri."

The cuts were too many, too deep. He wouldn't be able to stop the bleeding in these conditions, without the full extent of his medical equipment. He just had to clean the wounds as best he could in these incredibly unsterile, bloodsoaked surroundings, wrap her up, and hope that would be good enough until they could get her to a hospital.

Surprisingly, he found himself actually being deeply concerned about Yuri's wellbeing, despite what he felt for the girl. He supposed it would be very anti-climactic to have her die right as they were about to close in on Monika, not to mention the feeling of it hardly being a victory if they took down the main villain while losing one of her victims.

There was also the distinct voice of Jon echoing in his head, repeating what he'd heard mere minutes ago in that heroic tone.

_Nobody dies today._

He couldn't explain why, and he would rather die before saying it aloud, but he was determined to act to the full extent of his abilities to make sure this vow would come true.

As he poured water and Iodine over Yuri's marks, he glanced upwards to see Sayori, Natsuki and Jon standing still, all staring at him in stunned silence.

He felt his annoyance resurface again.

"Oh, no rush by the way, Kent." He drawled, sarcastically. "I'm just sitting here, trying to save someone's life. You just keep on standing there like an idiot and let Natsuki bleed out, that's completely fine."

"What the hell did you just do to her?" Natsuki asked, as Jon jolted out of his trance, and hurried over to her. She was gesturing at the girl lying in the pool of her own blood, motionless.

"Nothing lethal, if that's what you're asking." Damian said, as he rolled thick layers of gaze over her right arm. It was harder than it looked, since at some parts she'd cut it so thoroughly that the skin was dangling from her arm, connected only by very thin strips of flesh. "It was obvious we weren't going anywhere with her screaming and flailing like she was, so I gave her a little something to make this go more smoothly for the next few hours."

"So, you just carry around syringes that can knock people out for several hours in your pockets?" She asked, as Jon awkwardly tried stammering at her that he needed to look under her shirt to see the state of her wound.

"On this occasion, yes." Damian said, having finished wrapping up Yuri's right arm in clean, white gaze, and moving on to her left to repeat the process. "I was going to use it should Monika prove too difficult, but clearly Yuri took first priority."

"God, you're so creepy."

"Forgive me for being prepared." Damian retorted.

"Monika didn't do this." Sayori interjected, frowning at Damian.

"Oh, really?" Damian snapped back, scowling at her. "Well, theory busted I suppose! Clearly, the _nothing_ statement without any substantial evidence behind it can be trusted more than my scientific findings! Heck, we should all just step back and let _you_ take the lead on this case since you _obviously_ know more than the rest of us combi-"

"Damian." Jon said warningly, shooting him a glare, and Damian returned to tying up Yuri's arms in silence after scoffing a bit.

There was an awkward silence as Sayori stared at Damian while he worked, before it was broken by a sharp gasp from Natsuki, evidently having issues taking off her shirt.

"I can't." She said, breathing hard.

"I kinda need space in order to be able to patch it up." Jon said, frowning.

"Yeah, well, it kinda fucking hurts even moving my arm, and having the fabric brush up against it really isn't very pleasant!" Natsuki retorted.

"Alright, I think I got an idea. Hold still." Jon said, and gently placed his hands around the part of her shirt where the knife had gone through, and tore it wide open in one move, revealing the bloody skin underneath.

"That shirt cost more than what you make on your pitiful allowance in a year, Kent." Damian commented. "Just saying."

"I'm going to go out on a limp here and say that the market value already dropped significantly when a knife went through it. Just saying." Jon retorted irritantly while inspecting the wound.

Damian made a face, but kept up his work on Yuri, in silence.

"Alright." Jon said, in a softer voice to Natsuki, cleaning her wound with the iodine. "From what I can tell she didn't manage to hit anything important."

"Yep." Natsuki said, cringing as the chemicals were applied. "Nothing important hit at all. Just, y'know, me."

Jon's eyes widened.

"I- I didn't meant it like that, I, uh-"

"Relax, I'm just yanking your chain." Natsuki said, attempting a smile that ended up more like a grimace. "Just trying to lighten the mood because I'm terrified that I might need stitches. Please tell me I won't need stitches."

"You're... going to need stitches." Jon said, apologetically.

Natsuki swore, and Damian pulled a needle and thread from his belt, handing them to Jon. While Yuri _definitely_ needed something for her cuts too, trying to stitch something of her magnitude up would be a little beyond what even he was capable of at the moment, and even if he tried it would most likely take him until nightfall before he finished.

"Speaking of shirts, cool jacket Jon." Natsuki said, clearly trying to distract herself with smalltalk as she looked away from Jon approaching her with the needle.

"Oh, right." Jon said, hesitantly. "Thanks."

"Big fan of Superman?" She asked, a shaking entering her voice as he leaned in to stitch up the wound.

"Yeah." He said, and Damian saw her tighten up when she felt the needle pierce her sore flesh. To her credit, she didn't cry out. "He's pretty cool."

"Yeah, a- agreed." Natsuki's voice was miniscule as she clenched her fists tightly, seemingly determined not to cry out as Jon worked. "That r- reminds me, you're like, way stronger than you look, keeping Yuri from... doing that. _Ah!"_

"Sorry." Jon said. "Almost over, just a few more."

"Super. I must have passed out for a hot minute without noticing since I didn't even see you come in. It was like, one second I was looking at Yuri trying to... y'know, and the next you were just there. Either way, you must have gone really fast to stop her."

"Uh, right." Jon said, awkwardly, keeping up his stitching. Damian could practically hear his brain working overtime trying to come up with a response. "I uh, make sure to take my vitamins each morning. Eat healthy and all that, y'know?"

Damian rolled his eyes. It almost hurt having to listen to those pitiful excuses.

"Right." Natsuki said, and an awkward silence lingered while Jon finished his stitching. Eventually, he broke it again.

"Uhm, Natsuki? You know the things Yuri said, she didn't mean any of them."

"I know." Natsuki sighed. "Doesn't make them any less true though."

"Don't say that." Sayori cut in, sounding concerned as she approached. "You're not a bad person, Natsuki. I... don't entirely get what's going on here, or why Yuri would do this, but I know you could never have hurt her this way. Maybe she found you a bit much at times, but I know she cared for and appreciated you being around."

Natsuki sniffled.

"God, I've missed you so much, Sayori."

"I've missed you too, Nat. Sorry about not being here." The red-bowed girl replied, smiling sadly.

"Oh my God, you dummy!" Natsuki half-laughed, half-cried. "Don't apologize!"

For a second, the red-bowed girl opened her mouth as if she was about to say sorry again, but closed it again before a sound could emerge, blushing deeply.

"Jon, if it's all the same to you, I'd really like to go and talk to Sayori in private for a bit." Natsuki said, just as Jon snipped the thread connecting the needle to the stitched up wound. "We have some catching up to do."

"Go right ahead, I'm finished here anyway." Jon said, smiling. "It looks like Damian needs a bit more time to finish up Yuri. Just keep your shoulder calm, and maybe ease up on hugging a bit to avoid pulling the stitches."

"Got it, thanks." Natsuki said, and they both walked off to a corner to chat.

Damian heard Jon approach him from behind, while he finished wrapping up Yuri's left arm.

"You using that superhearing of yours to listen into their private conversation?" Damian asked.

"What? No! Why would I?" Jon said, sounding offended at the suggestion.

"It's what I would have done." Damian said, shrugging.

"Are you alright?" Jon asked, sounding concerned rather than his usual annoyed tone when Damian apparently said something he didn't deem "normal."

"Of course I am!" Damian sneered, anger swelling up in him. "Why wouldn't I be? Are you insinuating that this girl would ever be able to land a hit on me with her pathetic, telegraphed attacks?!"

"Alright, jeez, sorry for asking." Jon said, and Damian saw him beginning to move away out of the corner of his eye.

He sighed, the anger ebbing away from him. Why did he always do this?

"Thank you, Jon." He said, quietly, and gently placed Yuri's wrapped up arm across her body so the white bandages wouldn't be tainted by the blood she was laying in.

"What?" Jon asked, sounding surprised.

"I don't know what happened to me." Damian said, closing his eyes. He felt strong waves of shame wash over him. "The moment I saw her hurt Natsuki, it was like... like everything Father taught me just vanished. I wanted nothing more than to kill her right there for what she did. And then, when I saw what she was about to do next, I just... I froze, Jon. I was going to let it happen if not for you interfering. Because... because I didn't want to save her after what she did."

"Hey, hey." Damian felt a gentle touch on his shoulder, and opened up his eyes again to look at Jon smiling reassuringly at him. "It's okay. I completely understand where you're coming from. I was scared too."

"I wasn't scared, _Kent,_ I-" Damian cut himself off, taking a deep breath. He really needed to work on these outbursts of his. "Nevermind. Just... thank you for saving her. I really messed up there."

"It's okay." Jon said, and crouched down next to Damian, clapping him on the shoulder. "It happens to all of us sometimes."

Damian was about to retort that since he was superior to everyone, this shouldn't happen to him, _ever,_ but he let it rest. It... wasn't a necessary thing to point out, he realized.

"So..." Jon said, breaking the silence again. "What are we going to do about Yuri now?"

"She'll need something to make sure she stays alive for a bit longer." Damian said, and pulled out a long, translucent tube from his belt, as well as some more needles. "After that, we stick to the original plan."

Jon frowned.

"You're... really going to do this? Do you even know her bloodtype?"

Damian raised an eyebrow, shooting Jon with the most overbearing look he could manage, and Jon rolled his eyes.

"Sorry, almost forgot that you're you. Of course you know."

"While she was definitely screaming complete nonsense like a lunatic, she at least got one thing right." Damian said, connecting the needles with the tube, and bending down to find the best place to inject Yuri. "We're a perfect match for eachother, in one sense. I'm the only one here who shares her blood type."

"I'm not sure this is a good idea." Jon said, concerned. "Shouldn't I fly her to the hospital? I feel like they'll be able to take much better care of her than us."

"Unless we make Monika undo the damage she's inflicted upon her first, the hospital will be dealing with a mentally unstable patient actively trying to end her own life, by whatever violent means possible." Damian explained, as he found a suitable spot on Yuri to push the needle into. Taping it to the spot securely, he stood up to repeat the process on an artery in his own arm, having made sure to clean it first. "Let's cure her fully first before risking that, don't you think?"

The clear, plastic tube turned red as Damian's blood started traveling down from his arm and inside Yuri's body, just like she'd wanted. Jon crossed his arms.

"Okay, but can't we then _at least_ call up some heroes? Things very nearly went horribly wrong here."

"Unnecessary." Damian said.

"Oh, come on!" Jon exclaimed, impatiently. "Look at what happened! Two girls nearly died a few minutes ago, and you still don't think this is big enough? Why are you so against this?!"

Damian grit his teeth. This was going to hurt his ego severely.

"Look, Kent." He began. "You know how much I hate admitting when I've made minor miscalculations, so what I'm about to say should tell you something. Yuri was... an oversight, on my part. I failed to realize how much she'd been affected, and how far she was willing to go. But, we managed to overcome it, and a few injuries aside, they're all going to be fine in due time. Relatively, no harm done."

Jon didn't look convinced.

"But shouldn't we just to make absolutely sure nobody else jumps us, call someone? Like Raven, or Starfire. Heck, even Beast Boy would be a great help right about now."

"Sure, just completely reveal our identities more than you've already done, let's do it." Damian said, poking a finger at the wide "S" logo across the chest of Jon's jacket. "It would be a complete waste of their time, Kent. As we've already established, Monika needs a lot of time to bring someone to Yuri's level, and we haven't seen her near anyone else but us. And even if she somehow has without me noticing, I very much doubt it would be anyone you wouldn't be capable of taking out with your powers. I've 'learned my lesson' now, and if we just tread a little more carefully, there's no reason we shouldn't be able to take care of this ourselves."

Jon frowned, and crossed his arms again, making an unsatisfied noise. Damian didn't care, and kept observing the tube to make sure the process was going smoothly. After a few seconds, he heard the other two girls approach again.

"Okay, seriously now, you brought _blood tubes_ too?!" He heard Natsuki exclaim, disbelievingly, and turned to face her. It was hard to focus on her face with how attention-grapping the ripped shirt was, revealing the stitched up stab wound. To his credit, Jon had done a pretty good job. "What else did you bring? A katana?"

 _Once I manage to reverse engineer The Atom's tech, and make them fit in my belt, count on it._ He thought.

"It continues to astound me how woefully unprepared you people continue to be for situations like this." He retorted. "I just packed a few essential items, why is that such a big deal?"

"Don't get me wrong though, I'm glad you did." Natsuki sighed, and looked down to the unmoving Yuri, seeing the white bandages applied by him, starting to turn red ever so slowly in places, but managing to contain most of the blood. She looked deeply disturbed and upset.

"I swear to God, I'm going to kill Monika for doing this to her. She didn't deserve any of this." She said, in a dark voice.

"Please!" Sayori exclaimed, in a distressed voice. "Can't you guys stop accusing Monika? I don't get why Yuri would do this, but it's not her. It _can't_ be Mo-"

An intrusive, highpitched electronic noise flared up, and Damian turned on the spot as fast as he could, nearly ripping the tube from his arm in an attempt to reach into his belt and grab a Batarang for the unknown threat. He quickly identified the sound as coming from the speakers planted around all over the school.

"It's the school announcement fanfare." Natsuki said, in a slow voice, clearly confused. And true enough, he now recognized the sound as the cheerful jingle that came right before a staff member had to make a statement to the whole school. "But why would that be playi-"

Natsuki was interrupted when the sound of upbeat piano music started playing all throughout the building.

"What's... what is going on?" Jon spoke over the music that filled up the hallway completely.

"She's taunting us." Damian guessed out loud, narrowing his eyes at the speaker. He considered dismantling it, but that would just be a waste of equipment. "Monika most likely heard the screams, and is doing this in an attempt to unnerve us further."

Sayori, having been distracted and entranced by the music, snapped her head towards Damian, looking as angry as one could wearing a bright christmas scarf.

"It's _not_ Moni-"

_"Every day, I imagine a future where I can be with you."_

As if on cue, Monika's light voice rang clear from the speakers, singing along to the piano chords. Sayori stopped talking, her eyes having widened in what could only be described as a look of pure shock. Damian turned away from her, towards Jon.

"Kent, can you identify where her voice is coming from?" He spoke in a low voice, to prevent the others from hearing. "Announcement booth? Music room?"

_"In my hand, is a pen that will write a poem for me and you."_

Monika kept on singing, as Jon closed his eyes in concentration, then furrowed his brows.

"It sounds like it's coming from... The Literature Club?"

Damian frowned.

_How did she manage to carry the piano all the way up there?_

_"The ink flows down into a dark puddle..."_

"Nooo!" A voice exclaimed, and both Damian and Jon turned their heads towards Sayori, who had collapsed to her knees on the floor, clutching her head, eyes closed in a pained look of anguish. She appeared to be repeating some form of mantra to herself, over and over again, her voice increasing until she was yelling, trying to deafen the sound of Monika's singing from all around them.

"Get out of my head, get out of my head, get out of my head, GET OUT OF MY HEAD!"

_"...just move your hand, write the way into his heart."_

"Sayori!" Jon yelled, worry on his face as he rushed towards her, clearly at a loss for what to do when Sayori's mantra turned into a scream. She opened her eyes which were flooding over with tears, looking more distraught and helpless than Damian had ever seen her before, her body shaking even more than Yuri's had.

"What's wrong? How can I help?" Jon said, worry etched in every syllable of his voice, clearly desperate for a way to help his friend.

_"But in this world, of infinite choices..."_

"It's- it's her, Jon!" Sayori yelled, sobbing hysterically while clutching her head, as if afraid it would fall off. "It's- it's always been her! I d- didn't realize it before, but now that I c- can clearly hear it before me, t- there's no doubt it's been her speaking this w- whole time!"

_"What will it take, just to find that special day?"_

"What do you mean, Sayori?" Jon asked, placing his hands on her shoulders in an attempt to calm her down. Natsuki stood off at a distance, holding her hands over her mouth as she stared wide-eyed at Sayori's breakdown, at a loss for what to do.

"It's her." Sayori repeated, looking up at Jon. "Monika's been the voice in my head all along. I've been listening to her constantly for the last few days! _She did this to me!"_

_"What will it take, just to find, that special day?"_

* * *

_"And if this world won't write me an ending..."_

They reached the top of the stairs to the narrow hallway just a little after Monika reached the third repetition of her song. Up here, away from the rest of the speakers on the bottom floor, it was easier to make out her voice and the piano coming from directly inside the classroom they'd been using throughout the week.

They moved in silence, Jon walking in front, carrying Yuri's body who'd been disconnected from Damian's tube since he'd required the full range of his movement, making up the back of the group and looking around them on high alert to make sure nobody jumped out from anywhere to assault them.

_"...what will it take, just for me to have it all?"_

Monika finished the second verse, and the only sound that followed next was the continued upbeat piano chords playing, audible through the door.

Natsuki and Sayori, holding hands, walked next to eachother, sandwiched between Jon and Damian. Sayori had her head bent directly towards the floor, not looking up even once. It had taken some doing on Jon's part to calm her down enough to make her follow, Monika's song as well as her realization that her trusted Club President was as guilty as they'd claimed, had been... difficult, for her to accept. She seemed to have relaxed her shoulders somewhat now that the voice could no longer be heard from all around them, so at least that was good.

Not that Damian could really relate to the girl's emotions running rampant. He was much more focused at the moment on making sure this mission would run smoothly, and be over and done with as soon as possible.

They approached the door fully, the cheerful signs taped onto it, made by Yuri and Sayori respectfully. They looked incredibly off-putting, considering the nature of their visit. As if they'd been made at another time, way longer ago than it seemed.

Jon stopped up, right in front of the door, hesitating. Turning his head, he shot a sideways glance to Natsuki, who nodded back at him in determination. Damian walked up to join his side.

"Sayori?" Jon asked, his voice gentle. "Are you ready?"

Sayrori didn't lift her head, refusing to meet his eyes. She kept looking down at her feet, unmoving, until she gave a small, subtle jerk with her neck.

"Yes." She whispered, hoarsely.

"Okay." Jon said. "When I open the door, stay behind me. If any of you feel anything like a pain in your head, or an increase of emotions you shouldn't have, tell me. And I'll make sure she stops."

Natsuki nodded to show she understood, and Sayori gave another almost unnoticeable jerk.

_"Does my pen, only write bitter words for those who are dear to me?"_

Sayori flinched, as the sound of Monika beginning her third verse again filled the room.

"Alright." Jon said hurriedly, turning towards Damian. "Here, take her."

And before he was able to protest, Jon had dumped Yuri's sleeping body onto Damian's arms, making him tilt forwards at the sudden weight of the girl taller than himself.

Jon reached forwards to grab hold of the door handle.

"Kent, wait-" Damian tried warning, but it was too late. Jon had already fully opened the door, and walked inside.

 _Idiot._ Damian thought, gritting his teeth at this careless approach, and hurried along with the boy inside the room, wondering how he was supposed to help defend against anything with this dead weight in his arms. If something happened, he decided he wouldn't hesitate dropping Yuri to the floor.

As he made his way through the door, he noticed that the room looked completely like it had throughout the whole week, with the only difference being the large, black piano, placed eye-catchingly in the middle, a microphone stand at the top of it, which Damian guessed was connected wirelessly to the school's speakers.

And sitting by the piano, looking up and smiling pleasantly at their arrival, was Monika.

While she looked more put together than Yuri had, it wasn't by much. Still wearing the school uniform, Damian saw that the front blazer had been unbuttoned, showcasing the orange sweatervest underneath, and the red ribbon usually tied into a neat bow by her neck had been loosened up into a dangling strip of fabric instead.

The white bow at the back of her head separating her hair into the ponytail, looked like it had lost some of its puffy-ness, looking more flat and limp than usual. All in all, she had the appearance of someone who'd been sitting in one spot for a lot of hours in a row, and thus had adjusted her clothes a bit to make herself more comfortable.

Damian got the impression that both she, and the girl he was carrying, probably hadn't left the school since yesterday, given the dark patches also present beneath Monika's eyes, which for some reason seemed to be in a brighter shade of green than they usually were, evidencing that she, like Yuri, hadn't been getting much sleep.

"Hello, everyone!" She greeted them, sounding as bright and cheerful as she normally did, rising from her seat at the piano. Despite her somewhat disheveled appearance, she seemed to have no problems standing upright and addressing them as if nothing was out of the ordinary, and this was nothing more than just another normal club meeting.

"I'm so glad you could all make it today." She said, looking at each of them in turn, raising a teasing eyebrow at the bloody hole in Natsuki's shirt, and the limp body of Yuri in Damian's arms. "Did you hear my singing? I'm not very good yet, like, at all, but I did practice that song all night, so i think the end result got somewhat decent. What do you think?"

Nobody answered her. Damian narrowed his eyes at her, slowly walking around in order to cover her from behind in case she made any sudden moves.

He didn't like this. She seemed way too... _casual,_ about them being here.

Monika's smile widened, as she turned her head towards him.

"So, is she dead?" She asked brightly, looking down at the burden he was carrying, but spoke up again immediately afterwards. "Ah, no, I just saw her breathe. That's a bit disappointing, but oh well. She tried to stab herself, right? That was the impression I got when she left me earlier in the night, anyway. What a nutcase."

She looked towards Natsuki who was scowling back at her in barely contained fury, and her green eyes seemed to twinkle mischievously.

"Well, Natsuki! Between her and Sayori's previous attempt at their own lives, you must be feeling a bit left out by now. Don't you want to join the 'Suicide Squad' as well? I can make it happen easily, y'know."

Natsuki stayed silent, seeming angered beyond words now. Jon seemed to catch it too, looking worried.

"Is she doing anything to you? Do you feel any head pains?" He asked.

Natsuki shook her head, still staring down Monika, who returned the eye contact.

"Ah, so I see you figured it out, at last." She said, calmly. "Aren't you a bunch of smart cookies. But then again, I suppose I did kinda reveal myself a bit yesterday with Yuri."

Damian took this opportunity to speak up.

"So, you fully admit to being behind both her and Sayori's mental issues then?" He said, stopping when he reached a spot behind her, a few meters apart. Monika chuckled, and turned towards him again.

"Sure!" She said brightly. "Maybe a bit of an oversight on my part, but can you blame me? I mean, did you _see_ how annoying she was being? She hit me! The audacity, honestly!"

 _Something's wrong here._ Damian thought, frowning as he looked around the room, searching for something that might explain how over-confident Monika was acting. In his experience, it wasn't usual for villains to react this casually to having their cover blown by a whole group of people confronting them, unless they had something else planned. Was this just Monika's Metagene increasing her psychosis further, or did she have an unknown trick up her sleeve somewhere?

"How could you?" A new voice spoke up, and everyone looked towards Sayori who had walked a few steps in front of Jon, staring at Monika with a look fiercer than Damian had even thought her capable of. And it wasn't just anger in her eyes, as he could see tears start dripping from them.

"Hello, Sayori." Monika said, sounding like she was enjoying herself. "It's good to see you again. How's the neck?"

"How _could_ you?!" Sayori repeated, more emotion in her voice. "How can you stand there, making jokes and acting like everything's fine? We were your _friends,_ Monika! _I_ was your friend! We all loved you, and then you do something like this to us? Don't-"

Emotion took hold of Sayori as a half-choked sob escaped her throat, but she pushed away the hand Jon tried to place on her shoulder in support. She took a deep, shuddering breath, before staring down the Club President again.

"...don't you feel bad in the slightest for what you've done to us? What you did to _me?"_

Monika's smile faded at Sayori's words, turning into a slight frown instead, and her eyebrows seemed to furrow in what Damian thought looked like... self-reflection?

She suddenly reached into her pocket, and Damian tensed before he saw she was just pulling out a small handmirror.

"You know, I actually _do_ feel a little bad about it, now that you mention it..." She said slowly, looking at her reflection in the mirror for a few seconds, a somewhat concentrated look on her face.

Then, the smile reemerged, wider than before, and she looked up at Sayori with no hint of remorse.

"But I'm over it now."

"What's the endgame here?" Damian asked, impatiently. "Your goal with all of this? You have to have realized by now that you're completely outnumbered and outmatched here."

"Why, my goal remains the same as it's always been." Monika said, looking directly at Jon. "I want you, Jon."

"Me?" Jon said, widening his eyes in surprise.

"Well, you or Damian." Monika shrugged. "Either of you will suffice, I think. But I'd prefer it to be you, yes."

Jon's brows furrowed in a mixture of concern, and incomprehension. Monika smiled.

"Come on, Jon, just think about it." She said. "I know we haven't spent that much time together, but once you get to know me, I think you'll find that I'm a really interesting character! I'm kind, I'm smart, I'm even somewhat talented! And not to toot my own horn too much, but I think it's fair to say that I'm pretty damn attractive as well. And the special thing about me is, that whatever you see in the other girls that peaked your interest, I can be that too! I can be deranged and obsessed, I can be angry and annoying, I can even be dumb and depressed, for you! I can adjust myself to be any type of girlfriend you could ever want! You don't have to choose between the basic, one-note quirks of the other girls when I'm all of them, packed in a single, hot package!"

Silence lingered after Monika's "sales pitch," with Jon's face flaring up in a mixture of shock, confusion and embarrassment.

"G- g- girlfriend?" He managed to stammer out, eventually.

 _Okay, hadn't expected that._ Damian thought, raising an eyebrow.

"You _can't_ be serious." Natsuki piped up, voice absolutely outraged. "What the fuck is wrong with you, Monika? _This_ is the reason you've done all of this?! You made our lives worse, you got Sayori to hang herself, turned Yuri into a mentally broken, personal lackey, just- just so you could get _laid?!"_

A bubbly laugh emerged from Monika.

"Yuri?!" She said, in between her chuckling. "I'd hardly call _her_ my 'lackey,' honestly. She was just a happy little accident who might kill two birds with one stone if I got lucky. The birds in this metaphor being you and herself, Natsuki, and the stone being her knife, of course."

She giggled.

"But it wasn't like I was dependant on her or anything. I really couldn't care less if she accomplished anything, since my _real_ lackey makes her completely irrelevant!"

Damian furrowed his brows, scanning the room over again with his eyes at the mention of Monika's unknown accomplice, looking for spots where they could hide.

"Who?" He asked, hating the idea of this girl having yet another thing up her sleeve that he hadn't foreseen.

"Oh, I think you've heard of her, actually." Monika said. "She's quite popular. Here, I'll call her down."

Damian raised an eyebrow at her word choice.

_Down? We're on the top floor of the school._

Monika raised two fingers to her mouth, and let out a loud, clear whistle.

The effect was immediate, and overwhelming. An ear-deafening crash emerged, as a portion of the ceiling collapsed right in the middle between Monika, and Jon's group. Dust and debris showered the room, lit up by the sunlight shining through the newly made hole in the roof, obscuring whatever had caused this sudden downpour. Damian swiftly dropped Yuri from his arms, letting her collapse to the floor with a dull thud.

He shifted his body into a defensive position, narrowing his eyes to get the tiniest hint of whatever was inside the dustcloud, mentally preparing himself for anything.

But he quickly realized, as the dust settled just enough for him to catch the glint of the bright, golden tiara embedded with the familiar red star in the middle, that he _hadn't_ been prepared for this possibility whatsoever.

"Shit." He said, eyes widening in shock. The word had escaped his mouth automatically, it being the only one that came even remotely close to describing how bad this situation had just become.

"Game over!" Monika sang.

Then, Wonder Woman attacked.

It was instantaneous. One moment, Damian was looking at the faint outline of the heroine's tiara, and the next, his body was raised high above the floor by Diana's firm hand around his throat, the hand he knew to be perfectly capable of snapping metal bars in half with casual ease.

He struggled with his hands, trying to reach into his utility belt to find something, _anything_ that could help him, knowing already that it was completely useless when he saw Diana's blue eyes. Normally filled to the brim with hope, love and kindness, they were now staring dead into his, containing nothing of the woman he'd once known, no recognition in them of the son of her friend she was holding in her death grip. Nothing, except merciless determination.

"No, not him!" He heard Monika exclaim, voice sharp, dissatisfied, and by some miracle, he felt Diana's grip slacken around his throat just by a fraction as she blinked, hesitating.

It was all he needed.

Taking full advantage of her moment of weakness, he pulled out the small, electronic earplugs from the compartment of his belt, and reached up to insert them as deep as he could inside Wonder Woman's ears.

He pressed the buttons by their sides, activating them.

Wonder Woman immediately dropped Damian to the floor, needing both her arms free to claw at her head in pain as 150 decibels blasted directly against her skull, more than enough to shatter a regular person's eardrums permanently.

While Damian knew her to be made of stronger stuff, able to eventually overcome this, it would still slow her down enough for him to tactically retreat into the dustcloud that still hadn't settled, try to get some kind of overview over the situation and determine whether there was anything left to salvage, or if they were all dead already. He squinted his eyes, making out the shapes of two feminine figures in the dust, reaching around themselves in blindness. He quickly identified both of them, and realized they were too far apart from eachother for him to have the time to get out of here with both of them.

Taking a fraction of a second to consider the choice, he grabbed Natsuki's wrist, pulling her harshly along, running towards the exit door to the classroom.

It was a calculated decision, completely unclouded by personal bias. Yuri was off the table, as she would only slow him down, being the dead weight she currently was. Since Natsuki was smaller and more nimble than Sayori, it stood to reason that she would be faster as well, and prove more capable of keeping up with Damian, something that was deadly essential now that every nanosecond counted. It was completely rational, and didn't have anything to do with how he felt towards Natsuki himself.

There was another reason, but he couldn't waste the precious time thinking that over now, as he rapidly approached the classroom door, dragging the girl behind him. He was almost there...

"Damian, behind you!"

He heard Natsuki scream, and instinctively leapt to the side just as the room's refrigerator came flying through the air, hammering against the doorframe, effectively blocking their escape path.

He really wished he could say this was the first time a Justice League member had thrown a fridge at him.

Getting to his feet again, Damian looked behind him, already resigning himself to his fate, expecting the unbreakable bond of Diana's most fearsome weapon around him any second now, which would dash all remaining hope.

But he noted as he saw the demi-goddess dash towards them, resembling a streak of red, blue and gold with her outfit, that there was a certain... lack, of the glowing flowing rope by her waist. What was more, though she was moving as a blur, he was still able to _see_ her move, which was considerably slower than the pace she usually ran at.

None of which would have mattered of course, since even a lassoless Wonder Woman at a fraction of her speed would prove more than capable of crushing both him and his companion's skulls within an instant.

But then, when Jon finally realized what was going on and leapt into action, flying through the room like a blue bullet and intercepted Diana mid-air with all he had, Damian saw a faint glimmer of hope for them again. As the son of Superman pushed Wonder Woman against the wall with the impact of his collision, Damian began running back towards the middle of the room, Natsuki hot on his heels, struggling to keep up.

Finding himself located directly beneath the hole Wonder Woman had emerged from, Damian reached into his belt once again, and pulled out his grappling gun, as well as a few marble-sized orbs. At this point, the classroom had been cleared enough of the dust for him to see Wonder Woman having grabbed Superboy by his left leg and ragdolling the boy through chairs and desks, reducing them all to splinters.

"Stop!" Monika's voice screeched once again, clearly enraged. "Don't hurt the boys! Kill the girls, but leave the others unharmed!"

Diana froze up mid-swing, and dropped Jon to the floor, obediantly.

 _Noted._ Damian thought, as he aimed his grappling gun upwards, and dropped the marble-like objects to the floor. Evidently, Monika heard their impact and saw what Damian was about to do as the next second, she started screaming aloud once more.

"They're escaping! Stop them, Wonder Woman!"

The grenades Damian had dropped were already deployed, filling Damian and Natsuki's position with thick, impenetrable smoke. Damian fired the gun upwards, grabbed a hold around Natsuki's waist, and let the thin line connected to the small hook pull them upwards with rapid speed.

Already he could feel the rush of air from Diana running towards the spot they'd just been, the speed she was employing probably blowing away all of the smoke in the process. He knew they had precious little time left as he reached up to grab at the jagged ledge, partially destroyed by the superheroine flying through it, and pulled both himself and the girl he was holding up on top of it, and began crawling forward, hoping Diana would take the bait.

To his great relief, she did. Feeling the burst of wind around his ears as Wonder Woman flew upwards through the hole, he guessed she was trying to locate them running across the school's rooftop to escape, giving him and Natsuki ample time to crawl further into the dark, maze-like air vent system, which had been sandwiched in the space between ceiling and roof, broken apart and revealed by Wonder Woman's descent.

 _I'm sorry, Jon._ He thought to himself, knowing the boy would have to protect two girls from a mind-controlled, bloodthirsty Wonder Woman all by himself now.

_Just hold out for as long as you can. I'll be back._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, JaydoPlayz and mr cry, for your kind comments on the previous! I'm so happy to read you both like it as much as you do! You guys rock!


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